01225 683687
If you’ve got any questions you can call our friendly team who are waiting to help
If you’ve got any questions you can call our friendly team who are waiting to help
Travertine Floor Cleaning · Bath & Wiltshire
Travertine was the favourite stone of the 2000s and 2010s. A lot of those floors are now 10–20 years on and looking tired. Dull patches, etched marks, dirt trapped in the pits, sealer worn through. We clean, polish and seal travertine across Bath and Wiltshire — and for most floors, you can walk on it the same day.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking…
Travertine is a calcium-based stone — chemically related to limestone and marble — formed by mineral springs. It’s full of natural pits and voids, which is part of what gives it its character. Most travertine sold for floors comes “filled” (the holes plugged with resin at the factory) and then polished or honed to a smooth finish.
What goes wrong: the polished surface dulls down from foot traffic, the sealer wears off in walked-on areas, and the small pits that always remain start collecting dirt. Then a homeowner reaches for a kitchen-cleaning spray to “freshen it up,” and — because most kitchen cleaners are mildly acidic — they accidentally start dissolving the surface.
The fix is straightforward and the result is dramatic. Diamond burnishing removes the dull damaged top layer. Deep cleaning gets the trapped dirt out of the remaining pits. A fresh sealer protects the polish you’ve just brought back. £26/m². Walk on it the same day.
Why travertine dulls
Sealer wear. The original sealer is a thin film. Foot traffic, mopping and time wear it down. Once it’s gone, the polished surface is exposed and dulls down quickly.
Etch damage. Acidic cleaners (kitchen sprays, vinegar, lemon juice, fizzy drink spills, even some “natural” cleaners) eat into the calcium surface and leave dull spots.
Trapped dirt in pits. Even filled travertine has small surface pits. Dirt builds up there over years and starts to show as a general greyness across the floor.
Where we see most travertine in this region
Trowbridge, Melksham, Chippenham, Devizes, Calne, Marlborough — and across central Bath in the post-2000 housing developments. Travertine was the kitchen-extension flooring of choice for nearly two decades.
Most of those floors were sealed once at the time of laying, then never again. Many homeowners don’t know they were ever sealed in the first place. The conversation usually starts with “we just thought it always looked like this.” It didn’t.
If you’ve had your travertine more than 5 years and never had it professionally serviced, it’s almost certainly due.
Our travertine process
We look at the floor, identify the finish (polished, honed, tumbled), check the sealer, and quote a fixed price.
Quick burnish on a small area so you can see the difference before we commit to the whole floor.
Alkaline cleaner suited to calcium-based stone, rotary machine, rinse, extract. Gets dirt out of the pits.
Sequenced burnishing pads (coarse to fine) restore the polish to the surface and remove etch damage.
A sealer that lets you use the floor immediately. No 24-hour wait, no taped doorway. Done.
Things that wreck travertine
If yours is duller, patchier or stained — one of these is probably the cause.
The heat breaks down the sealer and softens the fill in factory-filled travertine. Holes can pop open later.
Etches travertine permanently. Even diluted. Even “just a splash.”
Most contain mild acids or surfactants that strip travertine sealer. Use pH-neutral floor cleaner only.
Strips the sealer, opens the pores, makes everything worse from that point on.
Travertine is porous. Red wine, fruit juice, coffee — wipe immediately. Don’t “deal with it later.”
Sealer is not permanent. It wears off in 3–7 years depending on traffic. If you’ve never re-sealed, it’s gone.
Travertine questions we get every week
Yes — this is the most common travertine job we do. The dull patches are where the sealer has worn through and the surface has dulled. Diamond burnishing evens out the surface so the whole floor looks consistent, then we re-seal. After we’re done, the patchiness is gone.
Yes. This is one of the things travertine customers comment on most. We use a sealer designed for immediate walk-on traffic, so there’s no 24-hour wait, no taping off the kitchen, no rerouting the family round the hallway. We leave, you live on it.
No, we don’t do hole-filling as part of our travertine service. We’ve found that the filled spots can pop out over time and the result isn’t reliable enough to charge for. What we do is deep clean to get dirt out of any pits, and seal to slow new dirt building up. If your travertine has very large unfilled voids, we’ll be honest at the survey about what we can and can’t improve.
The deep clean and polish lasts for years if maintained properly with pH-neutral cleaner. The sealer typically lasts 3–5 years before it needs renewing — sometimes longer in low-traffic areas, shorter in busy kitchens. We’ll show you how to make it last.
Not at all — but it does need the right sealer and pH-neutral cleaning. Most travertine kitchens we see have been let down by acidic cleaning products, not by the stone itself. Looked after properly, travertine in a kitchen lasts decades.
No — and you wouldn’t want us to. Unfilled travertine is meant to have an open, textured surface. Polishing it would fill the natural character with slurry and ruin the look. What we can do is clean it deeply and seal it with the right product to protect the rustic finish.
Get your quote
Fill in the form and we’ll get back to you the same working day. Surveys are free and there’s no obligation to book.
We’re a small team and we usually pick up. If we miss you, leave a message and we’ll call you back.
01225 683687