Cleaning Indian stone

[Deleted member 307320]

It's not actually in my garden, but this seemed like the best place to ask!

I've got a dark grey Indian stone slab as a hearth, but it's gone very pale in places due to plaster dust, and seems to have been stained by soot in others.

Can anyone recommend how to thoroughly clean it and prevent it happening again.

Cheers

 

[foxhole]

Just hot soapy water and a scrubbing brush brings it up and make sure you seal it when dry.

 

[robinbanks]

You can can attachment heads for jet wash lances that minimise the amount of side spray; they look like a cowl under which a rotating spray bar is found. If you have a helper wielding a wet vacuum cleaner (or even just two hands if you're able and willing to coordinate running the two machines at the same time) and a decent towel barrier you should be able to jet wash it without making significant mess elsewhere (but it would be worth pulling back any adjacent carpet)

 

[Deleted member 307320]

Just hot soapy water and a scrubbing brush brings it up and make sure you seal it when dry.

Should it have been sealed before it was used?

 

[foxhole]

Should it have been sealed before it was used?

Yes .

 

[robinbanks]

Should it have been sealed before it was used?

Even so, in the installation location it currently is it would attract the same amount of embedded dirt. Sealing it wouldn't significantly reduce the surface roughness into which the ash and plaster has settled. If you want to make it a wipe clean surface for future you'll need a finer filler, possibly an epoxy resin, but check how hot the surface of the stone gets when you run the fire and ensure that any surface treatment can cope with the temperature rise

 

[Mike13]

After you have it clean, use waterglass to seal it, that will cope with the temperature. Often you find "cement sealer" is actually waterglass as the main ingredient. It puts a semi-glass seal to the stone and will flatten it a lot so that it should wipe clean better.

 

[Deleted member 307320]

Ok, an update... I've given it a good scrub with soapy water, rinsed it repeatedly and used my workshop vac to suck up the dirty water so it didn't just get absorbed back into the stone.

I thought I'd take a punt and have go at polishing it, so I used some slightly abrasive car polish (!) on a area which will be covered by the fake chimney breast! Seems to have come up much darker and better, so now I'm thinking about doing the whole thing, but I'd rather polish with something specifically intended for the job... Anyone got any products they can recommend?

Aim is to get it looking consistent and then seal it as suggested above.

 

[Mike13]

On another thread on here someone mentioned these for a similar job:

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I am sure you can work out how smooth you need it to be, too smooth and it will show chips and scratches too easily, too coarse and the dust sticks in there.