This Victorian tiled floor was located in the west end of Glasgow, the owner had discovered the tiles under the carpet and wanted to have them restored as an original feature. When we arrived the floor was still covered in carpet glue, cement, and hessian backing from the carpet that had been stuck to the tiles.
Cleaning a Victorian Floor
The first job was to scrape off as much hessian backing and glue as we could with large scrapers and brushed all loose debris away. We then covered the entire floor with a strong solution of Tile Doctor Remove and Go combined with NanoTech Ultra Clean to create an effective coatings remover; this was then left on the floor to dwell for an hour in order to break down and soften the adhesive etc. The floor was then wet extracted and rinsed with clean water several times to remove any excess residue. This allowed us to see what glue was left which was then removed using a steamer. After this we cleaned the floor three times using Pro-Clean and a black buffing pad on a rotary bonnet machine to clean the floor; again all the dirty water was wet extracted with a wet vacuum and the floor neutralised with more water to ensure no chemicals remained on the floor prior to sealing.
Sealing a Victorian Floor Sealing
The floor was left to dry overnight and we came back the next day to seal it with four coats of Tile Doctor Seal and Go which is an ideal sealer for Victorian tiled floors as it leaves a low sheen finish whilst providing excellent stain protection. You have to wait for each coat to dry before moving on to the next so it did take a while.
This was a tough job but certainly well worth the effort as the floor has been completely transformed and now looks fantastic.
Source: Restoring an original Victorian Tiled floor in Glasgow
That tiled floor looked ruined, just shows what can be achieved.