Yorkshire Flags - cleaning ideas please!!! *PIC*

[Anonymous]

Hi

We've been lucky enough to find the original Yorkshire flagstones intact under a concrete floor in the kitchen of our recently bought Victorian terrace.

The flags are great, but there's a certain amount of staining on them...

We'd rather not varnish them and just tleave them in their natural state, but we're just trying to find out any recommendations for cleaning them to get rid of that staining - whether that be cleaning solutions / chemical cleaner etc.?

Any thoughts gratefully received....

Thanks

Simon & Nicola

 

[Anonymous]

A number of firms manufacture cleaning (and sealing) materials for stone floors - this includes Lithofin, HG Products and Liberon.

I'm not keen on impervious seals myself, so I'd recommend those which aren't! Obviously the floor will be laid on earth and will need to breathe.

To get a really, really filthy floor cleaned up in the first place we eventually had to resort to Wilkinson's 'Wilko' path and patio cleaner - made for external use, but used in dulution a stone at a time, and washed off with copious amounts of water, it worked well. For grease staims, a poultice to try to draw out the worst may be useful - talc etc.

Soap is a help in sealing a stone floor against staining - use a strong solution of Lux flakes or Ecover floor soap mopped over and left to dry. A similar solution can be used to keep it clean - although the joy of a stone floor is that it tends to be very forgiving of a certain amount of rural muck I find!

 

[Anonymous]

Just to add to Evelyn's suggestions, I recently cleaned my terracotta tile floor with a solution of Caustic Soda crystals. It worked a treat scrubbed on with a scrubbing brush, so a hands and knees job, not a mop.

Caustic Soda is harsh on skin though, so wear gloves. Costs less than a pound for a pack and instructions are provided for the strength of solution to use for different jobs. I had to find a hardware shop to get it though. My supermarket doesn't sell it.

I'm wary of applying anything afterwards because they all seal. I mopped on skimmed milk after I'd finished which brings out a bit of a shine (no it doesn't smell PROVIDED it's skimmed), but you need to be careful not to let it pool round the edges of things or you get marks.

Sue