As a stone restoration professional, I get several questions from my customers about stone.  Often, my customers ask me if their granite countertops should be sealed.  

   

A well respected company in the Stone industry did some research on the matter of sealing Granite.  StoneTech Professional’s researchers conducted an in-house study on the effects sealing has on the Biocontamination levels in natural stone.  The results were astounding.  The test consisted of measuring the bacteria levels of the stone prior and after placing various baking ingredients (listed below) on the stone.  The bacteria contamination level was increased over 18,000% on unsealed granite and 9,000% on the sealed granite.  When these two surfaces were cleaned with a stone cleaner, the unsealed granite bacterial contamination level was NOT reduced to a satisfactory level required by food processors.  The sealed granite contamination levels were low enough to be considered ‘clean’ by food processors using only distilled water.    I usually tell my customers, sealing your granite is needed to prevent illness and potential sickness.   

For the do-it-yourselfer, I recommend investing $55 dollars and about 3 hours of your time to ensure your granite countertops and your health is protected from bacteria and other food bourne illnesses.    Here is how to seal your new granite countertops yourself:  I recommend buying a quart of StoneTech’s Bulletproof found at most tile stores for about $55.  One quart should be enough to seal the granite in most homes.  Make sure the stone is cleaned and free of construction debris.  Saturate the stone.  This is the step where most companies (tile installers, builders, and remodelers) make a mistake of trying to conserve sealer to save money.  Keep the stone saturated for 15 minutes.  Finally, buff the sealer into the stone until the film is gone.  Do not allow the standing sealer to dry on the stone past 15 minutes.     

The bacterial contamination samples were allowed to sit in a warm humid environment for two days.   The samples consisted of a combination of:
·        Chicken
·        Liver
·        “Blood” liquid from a piece of beef tripe
·        Grapefruit juice (well past the expiration date)
·        Whole milk (well past the expiration date)
·        Roquefort cheese. The contamination levels were measured using a bioluminescence hygiene monitoring system, similar to those used to measure cleanliness in milk and other food processing plants. For more about StoneTech Professional and there research, I encourage you to visit them at  www.stonetechpro.com.     

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 13th, 2006 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Granite. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.