Clay tiled floor restoration at Torre Abbey

How ServiceMaster Clean Devon helped Torre Abbey make their 200-year-old clay-tiled floor shine again.

Torre Abbey is Torbay’s most historic building, an ancient scheduled monument dating back to 1196 set within 18 acres of garden and parkland.

It’s a multi-award-winning visitor attraction housing an impressive art collection boasting over 600 incredible works of art.

The abbey recently approached the team at ServiceMaster Clean Devon for their expert services.

This case study delves into how the team helped the abbey maintain its clay-tiled floor.

Situation

The clay-tiled floor in the Spanish Barn had become dull and difficult for the Abbey to maintain.

While they wanted this area to be a focal point for visitors, despite regular sweeping and mopping, it wasn’t what they hoped it would be.

This clay-tiled floor is laid on earth and is over 200 years old, so a specialist and sensitive approach was required to ensure the floor could shine.

The ServiceMaster Clean Solution

The team at ServiceMaster Clean Devon made several visits over a week to complete the floor cleaning and restoration, staggering the process to allow plenty of drying time between cleaning and sealing as the earth foundation has a high moisture content.

They began by cleaning the floor with a highly alkaline solution to remove all ingrained dirt and mud.

This meant the dirt was then extracted, along with all traces of chemicals, with the team’s high-power steam extraction units.

Our expert technicians then cleaned the floor in sections to ensure they didn’t miss any areas and that the entire floor was machine scrubbed.

After leaving the floor to dry for several days, the team returned to apply two coats of stone sealer.

The sealer chosen for the job is designed for floors with no damp-proof membrane.

It allows the floor to breathe so moisture evaporates through the tiles – essential for flooring of this construction and age.

The first coat was heavily applied and allowed to saturate into the tile.

Any excess was then buffed after 20 minutes.

Once the first coat had been allowed to dry for several hours, a second coat was applied and left to dry to a topical film-forming coating (a transparent film).

The final coat dried to a satin sheen, enhancing the floor’s natural colours without any high gloss effect.

Outcome

As a result of the team’s hard work, the natural beauty of the tiled floor has been restored, making it a focal point of the historic building.

Not only that, but the new protective coating will ease maintenance for the abbey’s caretakers and help protect it from daily footfall.

Need expert floor cleaning services?

If you’re in Devon, Torbay and the surrounding areas, and need specialist floor cleaning or disaster restoration services, contact the ServiceMaster Clean Devon team on 01803 200 278 or email office@smcdevon.co.uk.

Or nationwide, find your nearest ServiceMaster Clean business to receive a free, no-obligation quotation on our services or book online today.