Hi All, we have honed AB and its been a nightmare with the sealant. The contractors has come x4 times to remove and reseal it, as the sealant kept leaving swirls and marks. I am thinking now of just stripping the sealant off with Acetone and leaving the AB raw. Any advice of those that lived with honed AB without sealant for some years? Has it worked for you? I tested a sample piece and after removing sealant with acetone and testing a drop of oil on the raw piece for 30 minutes, it didnt seem to leave a oil stain.. so I am thinking sealant is not needed on the raw honed AB??

Polished concrete is NOT the same as SEALED concrete. All concrete floors have maintenance. The LOWEST COST concrete floors (ie polished WITHOUT sealant) have the HIGHEST amount of maintenance. The HIGHEST PRICED concrete floors (3-5 stains + clear epoxy finish) have MINOR MAINTENANCE (aka. sweeping and mopping). The thing you need to be 100% aware of: concrete STAINS and ETCHES! These issues do NOT go away until you work with the EXPENSIVE epoxy finishes. So... a low-priced polished concrete WILL STAIN (ketchup, oils, mustard, red wine, etc) and they will ETCH (reduction of gloss due to harsh acids or alkaline products such as lemon juice or ammonia cleaners). Polished concrete can be MORE DELICATE than marble. And marble takes a tremendous amount of effort to keep looking good. Both marble and polished concrete require FREQUENT sealing (3-4 times per year; every year for many years until it is saturated with the sealant). The sealants do NOT stop the etching. Etching will continue for as long as you own the floor. And if you decide to use a sealant, you may have to POLISH the floor every 6 months as well. Whew. For such a "tough floor", concrete certainly takes a LOT of effort. If you want concrete, you MUST go into this with your EYES OPEN. If you want "bullet proof" floors that have ZERO maintenance = porcelain tile. If you want bullet proof CONCRETE FLOORS then you need to pay $$$$ money to get the high-end epoxy finish.

As I thought. There are two things going on here: 1. Traffic is wearing down the sealant on the travertine (it needs it or it acts like a sponge) 2. Traffic is wearing down the POLISHED SURFACE of the stone (that is sitting underneath the finish) How to tell which is which? A sealed travertine floor should make a drop of water 'bead' on top...just like the finish of a brand new car. Any water should bead up and run right off. The sealed portions should still allow the water to bead. The worn down 'unsealed' sections should absorb the water like sand in a desert. It should get sucked right in. So take a drop of water and place it on the worn out spots and see what happens. And then compare that to the 'glossy' sections. That's how you can tell your floor needs resealing. Technically a resealing can be a DIY event...but you need to know how to remove the old stuff (sanding/grinding) and then clean it off and let it dry. Then you need to use a patch compound to fill in all the holes travertine loves to create (it can be like Swiss cheese!) and THEN you seal it. Just for fun, those sealants can have some serious chemicals in them. It takes a good deal of knowledge to work with them safely. Once they dry they are fine...it's the liquid format that makes them dangerous.

My quartzite has done well with the Tenax Proseal. I can‘t emphasize enough that you shouldn’t leave the sealer on for more than a couple of minutes before you wipe it off. The instructions on my label said something like ’leave on for some time’ so we guessed at 15 minutes which led to the countertops being covered with a haze which we were extremely lucky to be able to remove because we did it within a day. You will want N95 masks and to open the windows when you apply the sealant. The smell is very strong. There was a time or two when olive oil sat on the counter unnoticed and left a stain which we were able to remove by making a paste of baking soda and water and covering with saran wrap for a couple of hours. We have no permanant stains after 10 months of use. One other comment…our countertops are very shiny and from an angle I often see fingerprints on them. I’m not sure whether this would be the case with other sealers or not. Overall, I am happy with the outcome, and based on the fact that my almost white counters aren’t stained, I would use the Tenax again. Thanks to Joseph Corlett for the recommendation!