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Slate Cleaning, Sealing & Maintenance
Make your slate look great with XO2's best specialty natural stone cleaners, sealers and maintenance products. You'll find our most popular and highly recommended slate maintenance products on this page. Slate is a fine-grained metamorphic rock quarried in mountain regions all over the world. It tends to have a slick, wetter look due to the higher proportion of mica crystals layered through the stone.
Unlike marble or limestone, most types of slate are waterproof and very chemical resistant making them popular for outdoor applications too. Slate is very tough, wear resistant and is relatively easy to maintain but the darker shades can have a tendency to show dirt and scratches. You'll see slate in a variety of colours including black, dark green, blue-grey, blue, red and purple. Most slate floors have a strong resistance to acid and alkaline chemicals.
Clean Slate With C-A-T
CAT stands for Chemical, Agitation and Temperature. Choose the chemical that's suitable for your surface and soil. Select the right agitation method (eg. floor pad, brush, high pressure) and temperature you will clean with (heat often cleans better).
Recommended Products For The 4 Types Of Slate Tile Maintenance
*Always test products first before use.
- Initial - Cleaning newly laid floors... Use Bobby Dazzler (pH neutral). To remove grout haze and plaster dust use Crackerjack or Phos Power.
- Regular Maintenance - Use Bobby Dazzler (pH neutral). This is for everyday cleaning.
- Periodic Cleaning - Use Bonza or Too Easy. Periodic cleaning may occur monthly, quarterly or yearly.
- Restorative / Salvage Cleaning - Use TKO or Crackerjack. This is when things have gotten a little out of hand and the surface needs a reset! If a coating needs to be removed use the compatible floor stripper. For difficult stains use Poultice Pro and for rust stains go with Rust Daddy.
Precautions
Avoid harsh chemicals and abrasive cleaners where possible. When using heavy chemicals neutralise with Bobby Dazzler afterwards to avoid fast re-soiling.
Sealing Slate Floors
Pro Seal Ultra, our invisible impregnating slate sealer. This penetrating sealer is not a coating that will sit on top of the surface and it will not change the look, colour, texture or slip resistance of the slate. Some facilities prefer to use a water based coating on top of indoor slate floors to protect them. We prefer the natural look of slate but our recommendation for sacrificial coatings on indoor slate is Tough Shield (for a satin/lower gloss finish) or as a base coat for top coats of Blockbuster for a high shine finish. It is important that no topical sealers are used in wet areas. Please note that XO2 does not supply any slate sealers that enhance or darken the colour of the stone.