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
Slate Floor Cleaning · Bath & Wiltshire
Riven, cleft, honed and Welsh slate. Kitchens, utility rooms, hallways, conservatories. When slate dulls, it’s almost always because the sealer has worn through. We clean it, reseal it — and for floors that need extra depth, we can use a colour-enhancing sealer that brings the slate back to its original richness.
Why slate dulls
Slate is a metamorphic stone — completely different chemistry to limestone, marble or travertine. It’s not calcium-based, so it doesn’t etch from acids the way the other three do. That’s actually one of its big advantages.
What it does have is layered, textured surfaces (especially riven slate, where you can see the natural cleft lines) and a colour palette that depends entirely on having a good sealer in place. Unsealed or under-sealed slate looks chalky and grey. Sealed slate looks rich — deep blacks, charcoals, blues, greens, purples, depending on the type.
When customers tell us their slate has “gone grey” or “lost its colour,” it’s almost never the slate itself. It’s the sealer that’s failed. Strip the old sealer, clean the slate, apply a new sealer — and the colour you remember comes straight back.
Riven, cleft and textured slate
Riven slate (where the surface has natural ridges and clefts) is the most common domestic slate. The texture catches dirt, holds onto cleaning residue, and traps water. You can’t just wet-mop it — you need the right cleaner and the right agitation.
Honed slate (smoothed flat) is easier to clean but shows wear and scratches more obviously. Both finishes seal well, but the product choice matters.
For riven slate especially, we often recommend a colour-enhancing impregnating sealer — it gives a wet-look depth that suits the natural texture and brings out the colour variations across each tile.
What we see going wrong
White residue. Cleaning product or salt deposits that build up in the riven surface. Looks chalky and won’t come off with normal mopping. Common on slate in damp areas or where wrong cleaner is used.
Flaking layers. Slate is layered, and occasionally a thin layer can lift on a tile — usually a manufacturing flaw, but sometimes caused by aggressive cleaning. We can stabilise it.
Sealer failure. The most common issue. Old sealer breaking down, leaving the floor patchy with some tiles still rich-coloured and others grey and dull. Strip, clean, reseal — fixed.
Our slate process
We identify the slate type (Welsh, Brazilian, riven, honed), check the sealer, quote a fixed price.
Particularly important for choosing between standard and colour-enhancing sealer. You see the result first.
Specialist sealer remover, agitation, rinse. Removes failed coatings without damaging the slate.
Gets the dirt out of riven surfaces and grout. Slate’s biggest cleaning challenge is the texture.
Natural-look impregnating sealer, or colour-enhancing sealer for the richer wet-look. We’ll show you both.
Things that wreck slate floors
Slate is forgiving of foot traffic. It’s less forgiving of bad cleaning habits.
Damages grout, blasts uneven amounts of sealer off riven surfaces, leaves a worse mess than it started with.
Damages slate over time, bleaches grout unevenly, strips sealer. Always avoid.
Old advice that doesn’t apply to most modern slate floors. Leaves a sticky residue that traps dirt.
Heat softens sealers. Forces water deep into riven texture. Slate dulls down fast under repeated steam-mopping.
Won't etch slate the way they do marble, but will strip the sealer. Avoid on slate floors.
If you see a chalky bloom, don’t just keep mopping — call us. Once it’s set in, it’s much harder to remove.
Slate questions we get every week
Yes — this is the most common slate restoration job. “Grey and lost colour” almost always means the sealer has worn through and you’re looking at unprotected slate. Strip the old sealer (or what’s left of it), deep clean the slate, and apply a new sealer. If you want extra depth, we can use a colour-enhancing sealer that gives a wet-look richness. The transformation is dramatic.
A standard impregnating sealer protects the stone without changing its appearance — your slate looks like itself, just protected. A colour-enhancing sealer also impregnates but contains a finish that deepens the colour of the slate, similar to how stone looks when wet. Riven slate especially can benefit from the colour-enhancing version because it brings out the natural variation. We’ll always do test patches of both so you choose with your eyes, not from a description.
The cleaning process is similar, but Welsh slate tends to be denser and harder than Brazilian, and the sealer products best suited to each can differ. We’ll identify what you have at the survey and use the right products.
No. The cleaners we use are grout-safe. The bigger risk to grout in slate floors is when the wrong cleaner has been used for years — by the time we arrive, the grout is sometimes already crumbling. If so, we’ll flag re-pointing at the survey as a separate (small) cost.
For slate, we generally recommend a 4–8 hour wait depending on the sealer product. Faster than the standard 24 hours other firms quote, but slightly longer than the same-day walk-on we offer on travertine and limestone.
Often yes. Surface flaking on slate is usually thin laminations lifting from the top surface. We can stabilise it with a consolidating treatment and seal over. If a tile is structurally splitting in half (rare), it may need replacing — we’ll be honest at the survey.
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