A Stone Polishing Service in Houston Renewed a Marble Floor Ruined by Hurricane Harvey

June 10, 2018

Hurricane Harvey has been one of the worst disasters the city of Houston and its surrounding areas have had to endure. It was so devastating because it not only brought strong winds, but heavy rainfall as well. The rainfall was so heavy that it left one-third of Houston underwater at its peak.


That amount of water obviously produced a lot of damage. Hundreds of thousands of properties needed some type of repair just to be hospitable, while a tenth of that amount were completely destroyed. Fortunately, a homeowner and his wife were among the former. Their house was eventually recovered with the help of our Houston Stone Polishing service included as part of the renovation process.

This particular couple was among the thousands of families who had to flee their homes because of flooding. As if this wasn't traumatic enough, once it was safe to return, they found themselves having to deal with the aftermath. They were shocked to see the water flooding their house almost reached up to their knees. It took them a while before they could finally get the water out and dry everything out.

Unfortunately, most of their furniture and some appliances were completely ruined. Furthermore, debris, dirt, and other contaminants in the flood water managed to leave stains, scratches, and marks all over the floors and part of the walls of the entire house.

The couple did their best to clean and fix their house and try to replace all the damaged items. They bought new furniture, a couple of state-of-the-art appliances, and they threw away all their carpets and replaced them with new ones. Even the walls could be salvaged with a little paint and plaster. However, the stone floors were a whole other problem. No matter how hard they scrubbed and what cleaning product they used, it continued to look dull and scratched.

The homeowner was fed-up with trying to fix the floors and was even willing to accept them as they were. However, the wife simply couldn't live with the appearance of her stone floors. It just wasn't an option for her, as like a nasty scar, the stone floors would simply serve as a constant reminder of the horrible events that took place.

That's when she decided to seek professional help by googling "stone polishing services in Houston" and stumbled upon our site. There, she browsed through before and after images and saw how we had successfully handled similar situations. After consulting with her husband, she contacted us to book a free in-home evaluation.

A couple of days later, our experts showed up to her door to assess the situation. As the homeowner's wife had explained over the phone, debris and other contaminants had indeed left the entire floor covered with scratches and visible etch marks. As expected, the dullness was also pretty noticeable. Unfortunately, the heavy flooding had caused the marble stone to stain because water can contain minerals like magnesium and calcium, as well as other compounds such as bicarbonates, that when dried on stone surfaces can cause what are commonly known as water stains.

Happy with our experts' explanation and the service we had to offer, we sat down and set a date for the restoration to take place. The couple was eager to get rid of those stains and scratches that reminded them of hurricane Harvey and finally leave that horrible event in the past.

As agreed, our crew was at the couple's house that same week to get the work started. They quickly prepped their tools and protected all surrounding surfaces so nothing would get damaged once the job was on the way.

When everything was ready, our technicians began by cleaning the marble floors with our own proprietary stone-safe solution in order remove any residual contaminant and dirt from its surface. Once the floors where clean and completely dry, our crew started to hone the marble with different grit pads. The level of grit was gradually increased to remove each of the stone's superficial layer until all scratches and etch marks disappeared. To finish off the process, the marble was polished with special polishing powders until a high gloss was achieved.

Once our crew was done with the marble floors all around the house, no one would have guessed it had ever been flooded. The couple stated that it felt like home again because their floors shined again as if nothing had ever happened.

Before leaving, our crew gave a couple of tips on how to protect their renovated marble floors and keep them shiny for as long as possible:

• Seal your stone surfaces against etch marks and stains produced by excessive moisture. A sealer such as Sir Grout's Stone Armor will penetrate the stone's surface and shield it from water or any other contaminants that might damage it.
• Regularly sweep and dust your floors to avoid scratches.
• Avoid using acidic cleaners on your stone surfaces and immediately rinse your floors if they come in contact with acidic food or drinks, as acids are known to compromise the stone's properties and cause serious damage.

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