limestone floor help

[drinkingchanelno5]

I had a beautiful tumbled limestone floor laid in the bathroom in July. It was sealed 3-4 times. Six months on it looks awful. There is a grubby path between the door, loo and shower where the most traffic goes. It is washed weekly with the gentle method floor cleaner, but it looks like ingrained dirt within the tumbled/uneven surface of the stone. How can I go about cleaning this? Can I give it a good scrubbing, dry and re-seal? Or is scrubbing a no-no on limestone? I'm so annoyed I could cry every time I go into the bathroom, it wasn't cheap!!

Thinking about it there is a possibility - despite instructions - that my cleaner used too harsh a cleaner at some point which may have stripped the seal (her English isn't great). Would this change anything? Can I still scrub, dry and re-seal?

[spaceodyssey]

I use this cleaner on my limestone floor and it's one of the best I've ever used. It really cleans the floor and removes all dirt with ease.

[drinkingchanelno5]

Thanks, I think I've seen that in B&Q, will give it a go!

[AmateurDeLaVie]

I have a similar issue with Dijon tumbled in the kitchen, laid in March and looking very grubby within weeks. I spoke to Mandarin Stone where I had bought it and they suggested degreasing it (ie stripping the sealant off) and then resealing to saturation. The builder who laid it in the first place just did the degreasing/resealing exercise two days ago (mumbling that it will still look the same after a few months). It looks miles better now but not all of the ingrained stains was removed by the degreaser. Still, much better.

[drinkingchanelno5]

I ended up going back to the place I bought the tiles and got a deep cleaner for natural stone. Applied it, waited 5 mins and then got stuck in with scrubbing brush. Absolutely horrified at the dirt that came off! Now floor looks lovely again and I am slightly obsessed with picking up every spec of dirt I see whenever I go in there. What possessed me to lay a cream floor I'll never know but at least it looks good again!

I used the rest of the solution to do the kitchen floor and am equally deeply traumatised at the dirt that came off it as well.

The method floor cleaner is going in the bin as it was clearly not cleaning anything and I'm going to try the cleaner named up thread to keep it nice going forward.