If you want to clean limestone and care for your limestone floors it can be a relatively simple task. However, you do need to take care with stone like limestone as it is prone to damage by acid and acidic-based products since it is a calcium-based product.Limestone, in general terms, is relatively soft when compared to say granite or indeed marble. This means that it is always sensible to consider wear prevention. Here is a simple 6 – Part guide to cleaning limestone and maintaining limestone floors:

1. Ensure that your limestone is sealed with a high quality product to help protect wear and tear. We suggest a product like Sealer’s Choice Gold.

2. Make sure you try and eliminate grit from the limestone floor as this is the main cause of wear and tear to a limestone floor. Place dust mats inside and outside the room to remove grit from shoes and to help prevent the transfer onto the floor.

3. Vacuum and sweep the limestone floor on a regular basis. This also helps to remove grit and other contaminants.

4. Clean up any spillages as quickly as possible and don’t allow them to dwell and hence stain the stone.

5. Clean the limestone floor regularly using a mild and neutral cleaner. This will help clean the stone without harming the grout or the sealer.

6. Once a quarter conduct a deep clean using a high quality alkaline cleaner.

For more routine cleaning use a product like Concentrated Tile Cleaner. For deeper less periodic cleans, we’d suggest using Heavy Duty Tile & Grout Cleaner. This is a very powerful degreaser and deep cleaning solution.

Copyright Ian Taylor and The Tile and Stone Blog.co.uk, 2013. See copyright notice above.