The other day, I asked a major Custom Homebuilder in the North Tarrant area if he had anyone who sealed stone.  He said, “No, my clients (custom home buyers) do not normally want the stone sealed.  They like the stone to be look and age naturally.”  He went on to suggest that stains and dirt added to the character of the stone.  To which I replied, “I agree that most of my customers do like the natural look of stone; however, they do not like to walk across their floors and have their socks turn black.  We have sealers that prevent dirt and grease from bonding to the stone while maintaining the natural look.”  His response, “If a home owner requests sealer, then I will run down to HomeDepot or lowes and wipe some on.”   I have two issues with his last comments that I would like to share. 

(Tactfully, I did not go on to disagree with him or try to prove him wrong.  Bottom-line: Builders do not seal floors 95% of the time.  I can not blame them.  Sealing does not add value to the sale of the home.  So I ended the conversation and decided to discuss it with him later.)

What he said in that last comment is a common mistake of Do-it-yourself people.  Let me say that ‘you can do it, but Home depot can not help.’   The sealers sold in these stores are less quality than the sealer purchased at a Tile Store.  The sealer at Home Depot/Lowes is half the strength of what is sold in Tile stores. 
My thought, why invest money on a stone floor to put a lesser sealer on your stone.  Most do it out of the convenience.  I am hoping to make it easier on you to buy quality sealers and cleaners off our website, coming soon.

You might be wondering why they sell a lesser sealer than the tile stores Here is why???  If you can find a tile store to sell you the exact same sealer as they (Home depot/lowes) are selling for a $1 less, you will get an additional 10% off the competitor’s price.  It is company policy at these stores to give an additional 10% off if you can find it cheaper.  Thus, selling a lesser sealer, Home Depot/Lowes does not have to give a 10% discount. 

Morale of the story, buy from a tile store.  Or, try your luck to get a tile store to sell you the product at $1 cheaper than the Home Deopt/Lowes.

 [Sealed Travertine Floor]

The second issue I have is that he would ‘wipe on some sealer.’  This is a very common mistake by installers and Homebuilders.  When they are asked to seal stone, they use as little sealer as possible.  Just last month, a customer in Highland Village said her installers used less than 1 quart of sealer from Lowes (the cheap stuff) to seal approximately 800 sq ft of Travertine.  After completing work on her floor, I used over 1 gal of sealer on her floors (pictured above). 

To the do-it-yourself readers, saturate the stone for several minutes before wiping the stone dry.  The intent is not to see how much money you can save on sealer.  Remember, the goal is to get the best protection for your stone against stains and spills.

I say all this in hope that you can avoid these pitfalls of buying and owning stone. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 4:16 am and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.