Marble Floor Renovation in Bangkok

[gazmat]

We've just finished a lengthy renovation of a condo in Bangkok. One of the parts of the condo we didn't replace was the marble floor. The floor is lovely but very tired looking - dirty grout, missing grout, a few scratches, cracks and chips etc.

We contacted a company called Abacco who weren't interested - as the floor is only about 80sqm. They referred us to another company.

They came round and cleaned and recrystallised the floor. The job looks terrible as they had no hand tools to get to edges and corners and their polisher couldn't remove the worn floor surface - only make it shiny with a load of swirl marks

Does anybody know of anyone in Bangkok who can properly renovate a marble floor - grind 3 or 4 mm of the surface, including edges and corners, repair the grout and cracks etc and then polish it up.

[bankruatsteve]

You sure that's marble?  Maybe try one of the Boonthavorn stores for recommendation.

[eyecatcher]

2 hours ago, bankruatsteve said:

You sure that's marble?  Maybe try one of the Boonthavorn stores for recommendation.

Thats what I was thinking,....Marble is in the same family as granite so it should never actually get dirty and certainly not re grinding.

I just wonder if the product you have is travertine, an expensive quarried product similar looking but it does need sealing to maintain a pristine appearance.

 

the grout lines; well yes they can get grubby and my rule of thumb always for floors no matter what colour your tiles....use a cement grey coloured grout as it never ever looks any worse than the day it was laid. (assuming it was nice then)

[Anythingleft?]

Try this webpage, they say they work countrywide

 

http://thestonedoctor-asia.com/about/

[upside]

You can buy grout paint pens. They work well 

[Naam]

On 10/10/2016 at 6:06 PM, eyecatcher said:

Thats what I was thinking,....Marble is in the same family as granite so it should never actually get dirty and certainly not re grinding.

I just wonder if the product you have is travertine, an expensive quarried product similar looking but it does need sealing to maintain a pristine appearance.

 

the grout lines; well yes they can get grubby and my rule of thumb always for floors no matter what colour your tiles....use a cement grey coloured grout as it never ever looks any worse than the day it was laid. (assuming it was nice then)

sorry Sir! marble is far away from the granite family, it stains easily (a glass of orange juice can spoil several m²) and wears out easily. comment based on experience living and walking 15 plus 10 years on marble floors. next home (after my reincarnation) only granite flooring!

 

sent from my PC using old versions of XP Pro/Firefox being surrounded by ~600m² of marble (home built 10 years ago).

[Naam]

On 10/10/2016 at 1:26 PM, gazmat said:

Does anybody know of anyone in Bangkok who can properly renovate a marble floor - grind 3 or 4 mm of the surface, including edges and corners, repair the grout and cracks etc and then polish it up.

marble is rather soft but grinding down 80m² 3-4mm would last weeks. complete renovations are usually done by grinding down max 0.10 to 0.20mm before polishing.

[eyecatcher]

On 10/12/2016 at 1:02 PM, Naam said:

sorry Sir! marble is far away from the granite family, it stains easily (a glass of orange juice can spoil several m²) and wears out easily. comment based on experience living and walking 15 plus 10 years on marble floors. next home (after my reincarnation) only granite flooring!

 

sent from my PC using old versions of XP Pro/Firefox being surrounded by ~600m² of marble (home built 10 years ago).

 

Well thats my "you learn something new every day" quota used up.

 

I could never afford marble never mind granite

[bankruatsteve]

I'm having difficulties trying to quote...  Anyway, as Naam points out marble is a different material than granite (but then wonder why he would have used as flooring?)  My original question relates to why the OP had such a problem trying to fix.  My experience with marble has been very easy to take care of scratches, stains, etc. just using baking powder.  But that has been on walls.  Never had marble on floors - only granite.  In any case, hope some of the links provided or just having at it with baking powder will end up working.  :)

 

[Naam]

42 minutes ago, bankruatsteve said:

Anyway, as Naam points out marble is a different material than granite (but then wonder why he would have used as flooring?)

because it looks better than granite, my wife insisting "of course we'll have marble again!" and i did not envisage that some <deleted> workers repainting the ceiling of our pool area would scratch it with ladders ans scaffolding so badly that it needed repolishing. i have otherwise no problems with the flooring except in the kitchen.

[Naam]

2 hours ago, eyecatcher said:

 

Well thats my "you learn something new every day" quota used up.

I could never afford marble never mind granite

the (in our case) small price difference marble/granite was irrelevant. but we have a lot of marble covered half height walls and niches requiring the slabs being "bullnosed". using granite the grinding, honing and polishing is extremely labour intensive which would have delayed finishing the home several weeks (i was told).

 

having been the first one in the morning and the last one to leave the building site for nearly a year i did not accept any further delays. plus as mentioned before "the Mrs insisting".

[bankruatsteve]

46 minutes ago, Naam said:

because it looks better than granite, my wife insisting "of course we'll have marble again!" and i did not envisage that some <deleted> workers repainting the ceiling of our pool area would scratch it with ladders ans scaffolding so badly that it needed repolishing. i have otherwise no problems with the flooring except in the kitchen.

 

Maybe you have not seen the wide range of colors available with granite?  I did a house in Buriram with a granite floor that had beautiful colors and cost a LOT but looks great.