I received a call from the facilities manager at St Georges college in Weybridge. Having worked there for 20 years he lifted a carpet in the main reception when preparing the hallway for decoration. Underneath he found original Victorian mosaic tiles dating back over a hundred years when the school was established. However, for some reason they had been partially covered with concrete scree and then carpet adhesive just to make it more interesting.

Admittedly this job was slightly beyond my work experience so I enlisted a highly experienced colleague from East Surrey, Mick Conlon.

The work would take five days to complete. We broke down the job into sections. Remove the adhesive, remove the scree, hone the tiles, repair any missing, broken or damages tiles and finally seal.

We smothered the surface in Tile Doctor Remove and Go which in turn was covered in plastic sheeting. The product was trapped under the plastic where it couldn’t dry out. After a couple of hours it had broken down the adhesive which we swept up and disposed off. This was unpleasant work which required us to wear protective gloves, masks and eye goggles.

On day two the concrete needed to be removed. This was done with a process called honing. A circular pad was attached to the buffer and mixed with a covering of water to cut the floor. The honing pad is impregnated with diamonds which gradually removes the concrete. After several hours the tiles began to reveal themselves. It also became apparent that after over 100 years of thousands of pupils walking over them some of the tiles were somewhat dipped in the middle. Using a handheld buffer these areas had extra attention with a 100 grit diamond buffing pad. This process took most of the day with one man honing, the other removing waste and constantly cleaning with fresh water.

As time went by it became apparent that staff from all over the school where finding an excuse to view our work.

Once the tiles were totally free of concrete it exposed several broken and missing tiles. Some tiles had been removed and not replaced but filled with concrete. Once I’d photographed what tiles needed replacing I drove to a reclamation yard in Tenterden to seek decent matches. I spent the rest of the day cutting and fitting replacement tiles. All holes and cracks were filled so the floor was ready for sealing the next day.

All that remained was to clean the work area and seal the tiles ready for when the students returned from their summer break.

We discussed with the facilities manager what sealer to use. Given the high amount of traffic we advised that high shine sealer would suffer under heavy footfall. We agreed on a Matt look finish with colour impregantor. Tile Doctor Colour Grow contains colour enhancer which gives the tiles a huge boost making the contrast between dark and white tiles very eye catching.

At end of the final day the headmistress came to give her approval as did the whole secretarial staff. My favourite word was “astonishing”. Hard to disagree.

Limestone is cleaned and polished by using a burnishing system of four diamond encrusted pads, each with a differing grit or coarseness.

The first pad is 400 grit which removes and existing sealer and dirt. Gradually I work down through a 800 grit then 1500 grit to the final 3000 grit which returns the shine.

Limestone is sealed using a natural look, solvent based product that penetrates the stone offering maximum stain protection.  Depending on the size of the work  area limestone restoration takes two days work.

I also clean Amtico, Karndean, Altro and Rhino. Like tiles they require regular maintenance, a mop and bucket of warm water just won't cut it.

Sealer is stripped away, washed, dried and re-sealed to look like new.