Polished Porcelain Tiles

[Scooby_D]

Hi All,

First post so hopefully its in the right section.

I bought the below polished black porcelain tiles for a shower room - mainly for the walls but a small floor area to:

< link removed >

They were fitted out last week. They came with an oily protective film completely spread over the tile. I think the tiler wiped off bits of it where he was cutting and he was also slightly wetting the area he was cutting. It made some mess! he was completely back and so was my hall floor - luckily it still has carpet to go down..

Once they were all in, most of the protective film was still on and they looked a mess, the tiler briefly wiped them but left most of it for me to do. I used lithofin wexa multi purpose cleaner first of all to clean them up. I then rinsed them all with clean water as the directions for use say and then dried most of them off.

There are two small windows in the room and when it is daylight, the tiles in the light dont look like polished black tiles, they look duller and slightly grey/white..

I have read a couple of posts on here since about B and Q tiles and people having similar problems. Dont know if these are the same tiles as they are available on most of the popular tile websites as above.

I also have lithofin protective impregnator, which i have still to put on.

I read some posts saying this should go on first but all protective film had to be cleaned off and this was quite messy

Is this just the way these tiles look in daylight? Does anyone have these tiles, im a bit worried i've done something wrong.

Any help / advice much appreciated. Thanks, Dennis

 

[jay]

hi and :welcome: any chance of posting photos might help it could be a number of probs more pics the better :8:

 

[danJ]

Is this just the way these tiles look in daylight? Does anyone have these tiles, im a bit worried i've done something wrong.

Any help / advice much appreciated. Thanks, Dennis

Hi Dennis,
I've got the B&Q ones, but they are very shiny and when bright light's shining on them you get the reflections from that rather than seeing them as "black". When mine were smeary/powdery with grout you could see it clearly as that when you get down at an angle. I've attached a picture to show just how reflective and mirror like the black ones can be.
Best,
Daniel.

 

[beanz]

Dennis, have they been grouted? Sounds like you have grout haze over them from your description to be honest. Really the wax should've all been removed, then sealed (probably more than once), then grouted. If it is grout haze, i'm not sure how easy it'll be to remove... Hopefully someone with a bit more experience will be able to guide you there. Although to be honest, if you're unhappy with the job, you should be getting your tiler to rectify. Have you paid him yet?

 

[Scooby_D]

Unfortunately yes, he has been paid. He allowed 2 days for the work but on the second morning had to go out and buy a new cutter. So “lost a couple of hours” he basically ended up rushing it in the end and finished about 7pm.

At that point the tiles were still pretty black from grout and some of the protective film so didn’t notice the haze look, it was also dull outside (they look a lot better when its dark outside and its just the bathroom down lighters on)

So yeah it’s all been grouted and then I cleaned everything off after with the lithofin wexa. Should the tiles have been fully cleaned / sealed before they were even cut / put on the wall then?

I’ve got a few tiles left so going to try cleaning and sealing one of them to see what like.

I’ll try get a few pics up.

Thanks for replies

 

[DHTiling]

It is a protective transit wax...try lithofin abra clean or LTP grimex before you seal..

 

[beanz]

Should the tiles have been fully cleaned / sealed before they were even cut / put on the wall then?

Not necessarily before cutting/laying, but certainly before grouting.

 

[Scooby_D]

The tiler def grouted them without sealing first. Although i dont think the grout was all over the tile when he done it

Dave - I cleaned the tiles with lithofin wexa, they are smooth and feel clean to touch, but in daylight dont look completely clean. Is lithofin abra much different from the wexa? I'l buy some and give it a bash.

Cheers

 

[DHTiling]

Lithofin abra is a new product from lithofin designed to remove these transit wax's from porcelain.....wexa is more for removing old coats of sealer etc and not these stubborn transit wax's.