Vomit on limestone tiles

[chickensaladagain]

My dd threw up on my parent's tiled bathroom floor and its taken the top off the tile!

Is there anyway to reseal the tile and make it look nice again?

[adagio]

What is the finish on it? (Honed, Gloss?)

I have honed limestone floor in the kitchen; the fitter said to be really careful of any acid and told a story about a previous client who dropped a jar of salsa and left it there for an hour or so - she had to have the tiles dug out and relaid? How long was the vomit there/how deep is it etched?

I need to reseal mine I think as its been a few years - sealing to make it more water repellant though I doubt it would actually fix any problems.

I will be stripping off the old finish (strong detergent, alkaline, might try soda crystals and nail brush on the grout) then rollering on Lithofin solvent based sealer (clear, texture of water and very smelly!) and finishing with Filo satin wax (a liquid wax you dilute then mop on which smells lovely).

I have read you can pay a man to diamond grind a stone or granite floor to refinish it, I suspect it would be cheaper to relay than do this though (sorry).

Maybe try talking to someone like Mandarin Stone for advice (thats where I bought my floor from)

Good luck

[chickensaladagain]

It's gloss, was there a matter of minutes but its still taken the coating off

Sob

[JazzAnnNonMouse]

Why would you have something that can't deal with acidy things somewhere where the majority of people's sick happens?!

Maybe it's for the best - get them some Lino

[flow4]

Oh dear! It might be worth posting this on 'teenagers' ... It is just possible someone there will have had to deal with this situation before!

[PigletJohn]

limestone is made of the same stuff as limescale. So an acid (including for example lemon juice, tomato juice or vinegar) that removes limescale from your taps will also eat away limestone, marble, travertine etc.

I don't know the PH value of human stomach contents.

I suppose you might re able to polish it up, but it would be quite hard work.

[adagio]

Filo do a gloss wax too, I bought my satin wax from Mandarin at the same time as the floor - I suspect other stone places sell similar too.

Generally Limestone, Travertine and Marble are in the same bracket, although marble is harder. I seem to recall a few repair kits around and about but I suspect these might be a case of removing all the top layer so it all matches, then reseal/wax -thus hardly a recipe for a gloss finish.

If you are desperate perhaps try and get hold of some gloss wax see if this helps; but in all honesty if its etched the top layer off you might be buggered.

I would personally call one of the stone shops for advice (as they sell the waxes and repair kits so its not like you are purely milking them for information, plus they will almost certainly say there is no guarantee product x will work so you can say you need to think about it if its too pricey!!)

[MrsFlorrick]

Stomach acid is composed primarily of hydrochloric acid. This has a ph of about 1.5.

If left long enough it would eat through most things even damage vinyl flooring.

You can repair your tile. Your limestone was polished so you can have it repolished by a stone mason and sealed again. Cheaper than replacing part of the floor.

You can polish limestone yourself but it's a faff time consuming and you may need to buy tools for the job. But cheaper than asking a stone mason. You will need a lot of silical carbide sandpaper grades 600 to 800 grit and preferably a polishing attachment tool for a screwdriver with a very soft almost fluffy side. And then very very gently and carefully buff the area in circles taking care to avoid surrounding tiles by covering them up first.

I have limestone in both our upstairs bathrooms. But it's honed. Honed is far more forgiving than polished I am afaid. I have had vomit on mine and you can't see it at all. Polished stone is high maintenance where as honed isn't.

I used Dry Treat to seal mine with and it's superb. I regularly spill body oil etc and it has no effect and doesn't soak into the tile.