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Dear Tilers,
I'm desperate for some advice from someone who may have made the same mistake I have and could turn around the situation if its possible?
5yrs ao I bought 50m2 of 600x300 polished porcelain in "super white" (although are more cream than white to be honest) from Topps. I suspect they are Chinese, but the box doesn't say, they give good instructions on the rear and we followed these really well!
i used half for an ensuite's walls without problems following the threads on here on how and what to do, this is a super forum and helped me loads!
So with the other boxes in dads garage and having moved we decided to put them in the kitchen, and over the last few weeks they have gone down on top of Slc with ufh and 10mm insulation boards under that. All using white mapei keraflex or keraquick as necessary!
All was good until I went to remove the transport wax, previously I used from topps a fila product they recommended Tile and Stone Stain remover, by Fila diluted at 1 part to 5 water.the wax wasn't to thick to be honest, so we gave it a wash over with a cloth and then allowed it to soak for a couple of mins and then washed and dried with clean water and more towels.
We could see no more wax but the tiles appeared to loose their shine, only really seen in the 50w downlighters, so we tried again and again and still no better, even neat it made no difference. The marks appear to be like tiger stripes, or leaf veins but larger and random. If you look into the reflection of the bulb you see a haze, like you have the wrong specs on!

We decide to press on thinking this was just how it is and the tiles must be poor quality, so I think we might have made the mistake worse by applying a layer of fila polished porcelain impregnating sealer, again from Topps, our thinking was this might bring back the shine when buffed off, but it hasn't at all. We left it for 12hrs before buffing off the residue with microfibres, it came off easy, but the marks are still there.

So now I'm really worried and on reading some excellent posts on here decide to try again with a cleaner, this time LTP Grimex at 1 part to 4, but again this doesn't seem to effect the marks at all either, even neat as well, even left for 15mins.

i haven't grouted yet, so it's not grout haze, and I was carefull with https://www.tilersforums.com/forums/tile-adhesive/ too, cleaning down as I laid, and the patterns are more random than the edges, I've tried to take photos but because its in the reflection it's neigh on impossible, you could almost say its a bloom.

Now I decided to try a spare tile, I have just buffed the wax off and have a good shine with no haze visable, I have applied the fila impregnating sealer to an area and have moderate markings appear, I have used the Grimex in another area and removed all the wax well but still had some markings appear, but the worst area is where I have removed the wax with the fila tile and stone stain remover (neat or diluted), this shows the same perception as the whole 15m2 floor!

All of the initial wax removal and sealer was exactly the same method and products I used previously, and we didnt have this problem, but being vertical and with poor lighting I don't think we would ever have known anyway!
The tiles had been stored in their boxes, face to face in a garage, stacked in a tower, so maybe frost or cold and damp could have effected them?

My wife thought it may be optical hazing (isn't google wonderful) but its too random for that in my opinion, and definitely influenced by the products I used to try to remove the little wax that was present before I needed to seal.
Does anybody have any ideas if I can bring back the shine and remove the haze, in natural daylight and different lighting its hard to see, but the downlighters make it unbearable to look at the reflections.
Ive looked through a 30x lense and I can't see anything at all, even tried a portable daylight made by 3M for bodyshops and I can see it worst in this light, so an idea is to change the temperature of the bulbs and increase to 60deg wide floods instead of spots.

Could maybe the markings have been present always but masked by the wax, or highlighted because the wax remover was so effective? Or damaged by the acid in the fila product even though topps recommended it and it was specified on the tile boxes to use it and then seal twice before grouting.

Or do we just have accept our fate and live with this problem for ever more?

Many many thanks for any advise and sorry to ramble on!

Justin
 

Andy Allen

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Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

it maybe down to the amount of time they have been stored. what were the conditions like..? was it a damp wet garage..?
 
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Justin S

Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

Hi Andy
Thanks for taking a look at my midnight ramble.
Anyway, garage is just normal, it's not heated, but brick built in the late 80's, and would go down to about 5 degs I would say in the winter, ive never seen any frostyness inside and anything electronic is normally ok in there too.
All the boxes were good, almost like 5 sided with the back surface exposed with plastic corner protectors, and the cardboard hasn't been soggy.
One thing i should have mentioned is the Tiles were face to face in the boxes, 8 in a pack - 28kg a box, and when trying to remove them I found pairs could be stuck together, they needed a twist to release the wax, or use the plastic corner of the packing protector to gently prize them apart.
But the wax did almost buff off to the eye, and to be honest after the amount of grimex i have put on them i really cant see any improvement on the tiles that had already had the initial washing with the Fila Tile & Stone...

My sample tile I've experimented with certainly shows this marking to appear when the wax is removed with the fila product, even if diluted and left on the tile for a couple of mins only then washed off with clean water.

Many thanks, much appreciated.

Justin

Many thanks

Justin
 

Andy Allen

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Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

trouble with polished porcelain, is its porous, there's no glaze on the tile to protect it, so damp wet dirt can stain the tile, transit wax is on there to protect it before its sealed, so I may be barking up the wrong tree.

did you seal the tiles you used 5 years ago?

how long has it been since you have laid the floor?, do any of the tiles seem to be getting better the longer you leave it..
 
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Justin S

Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

Hi Andy,
Yep i used the same sealer 5yrs ago, (although this time i bought a new tin, because i was worried of evaporation of the old stuff), but i used the exact same plastic container of the Fila Tile and Stone Stain that i used previously as i still had a 1/3rd left. It goes a long way diluted 1 to 5 too.
Thing is i still cant see it is really the sealer being at fault, maybe now im in a loop because i sealed them after causing the damage and the Grimex dosent shift it, but I'd still say the issue is worse on the experiment tile ive played with on the area of the Fila Tile and Stone Stain remover.

Im pretty sure this probably happened 5yrs ago too, but with them being vertical and with poorer lighting we didnt notice it.

Majority of the floor has now been down for 3 weeks, and i tried to clean the wax off them first last saturday afternoon, in the daylight. (at this stage i could see some markings, but in the available light they looked reasonably ok so we continued and then sealed them using a foam roller) and left over night and buffed off Sunday morning...
Sunday evening is when i really noticed how bad they were in the downlighter reflection and around the focus point of the bulb, its like its hazy and bloomed.

As for getting better, I dont think they are to be honest, I dont think they are getting worse either, and nothing I do seems to make them any better! :-(

I dont know what else to do now.. I can't rip it up because of the cost and the UFH, I cant see I have much i can say to Topps to be honest because of the time passed, although I still ahve about 7 new boxes that I can damage at will with the Fila product they recommend on the Tile boxes to use to clean them with!

Just feeling a bit depressed about the whole situation, and thinking we are just going to have to get on with it and live with it.. unless you kind people have some pearls of wisdom?

Cheers and thanks
Justin
 

Andy Allen

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Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

not used that particular sealer before, but most I have used say to only leave on the tile for 15/20 mins then buff of the excess, to prevent it drying on the tile..
 

Sean Kelly

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Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

I had the pleasure of laying those tiles a few weeks back. I must say that getting off the transit wax was a tough job. I used 'Lithofin Wax off' with great success. As Andy says, a sealer should 'normally' be buffed up about 15 mins after application. Sorry I cant give you any advise about your situation. Good luck.
 

cam_low

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Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

You used a water based cleaner to remove the transit wax which has got into the tiles microscopic pores. (Hence the need for sealing polished porcs) Dirt has got in their too...maybe from your shoes, just a guess.

Topps should have recommended a solvent based stripper to remove the wax, which they also sell.

It is unfortunate that you didnt get a pro in as this would have been picked up on.
 
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Justin S

Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the advice and having a think about my problem, very kind of you all!
So, here is a bit of an update.
Yesterday I took several of the tiles from a new box still with the wax on them to work and then to Topps, the same branch I bought them from (it was actually early 2010 I've since found out - see I'm wishing life away!) to show them and ask advice.
At first they said exactly the same as you guys, and that I'd used the wrong product to dewax and it should have been solvent, even though they sold it to me, so I pointed out on the fila website that its the preferred product from fila for this task and they were a bit shocked, but still thought it was the case it was wrong advise.
So we used my day lamp and looked at the tiles with the wax still on, then buffed it away with hot water, they looked lovely, nice and shiny but still with the marks if you looked carefully in the reflection, but not so much haze.
We then took a new tile, as they still sell them, and guess what..... Not as bad... But still with the marks visable when the wax was buffed off with hot water, with the wax on you have no idea.
So on the basis that I have nothing to loose I bought the solvent fila stripper they were recommending to use, thinking that if it took the wax off a new tile without the marks showing then I had ruined them with the water based product.
Got back to work and tried it on a new tile.... Worse than ever! The haze is back, the reflection is like you have the wrong specs on, and the marks are visable again.
I even tried on a previously sealed tile that had been de waxed prior to sealing, and the new stripper didn't make it worse or better, I tried on a tile that I'd sealed only after buffing the wax off, and again it made no difference either!

So I couldn't see the point in stripping off the laid floor of the fila sealer I'd already applied with this new stripper, and I'm 100% positive if I bought a new tile and used either of the strippers the marks would show in the same way. I don't think storing in my garage has made any difference, as the new one in Topps would be fine and its not.

So I decided to go ahead and seal then again over night as the guys in Topps insist the sealer must be left on for 12hrs, like it says on the tin, and on the fila site I'm pretty sure this is a rebranded version of MP90, and fila say this is left on for 24hrs!

After all the products and effort, and worrying about this I'm thinking if we were stupid enough to go for a white kitchen floor, it's going to be a pig to keep clean anyway, it's shiny enough, I've grouted in Jasmin and the wife is happy! I'll give them another seal too and call it a day! Maybe change to led bulbs and see how that helps.

If anything the lesson I've learnt is that at ÂŁ6 a tile, you get Chinese tiles with a load of wax, and possibly a lot of marks underneath it all, but that's cheap I guess. If I'm going to be more critical about I'd say anyone thinking of putting something high gloss on the floor with downlighters should dewax them before they decide to go ahead and buy them or the effort of laying them, even if they look great when washed off with hot water, as if they need sealing and your borderline OCD like me, you probably won't be happy with the end result. Buy some samples, and the dewaxer even if its another twenty quid and test it at home before you commit!

I honestly don't think I've done much wrong to influence this, it's nobody's fault, just the standard of the product I bought, unfortunately they doesn't live upto my expectations, and I should have maybe listened and took notice when others said to me that all tiles are not the same!

I think it's a case of you get what you pay for!

So, many thanks guys for all the advice, I'm still pleased I laid them myself, as I only really have myself to blame now and I'm not arguing with any trades that got stuck putting these down and with us as clients being disappointed!

So, if anybody has the same experience or an idea to turn it around and almost rewax them I'd be pleased to hear, but I'm not after a skating rink kitchen! :)

Cheers, and appreciate all kind comments, great forum, great people!

Justin
 
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Amir Patwa

Re: Is my floor ruined? Polished Porcelain after fila tile & stone cle

You will need to repolish the tiles using a product called Krystal blu and using a cream marble polishing pad buff the floor. It will remove all the topic or impregnated
sealer from the tile to give you original finish
 

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