An eight-storey building in Melbourne’s CBD that is over a century old had a marble floor, estimated to be half that lifespan, that began to show its age. Stone Doctor Australia received a call from the landlord inquiring if it could restore the floor at the entrance, steps and foyer.

The team arrived at the project site to find the once gleaming floor in a very sorry state. Deep scratches and gouges marked its surface and its shine had long given way to a cloudy dullness. Stone Doctor outlined an eight-step process, assembled the necessary products and equipment from its Bellinzoni Italy and Coor & Kleever Spain ranges, and began work earlier this year.

First, it carefully removed all existing grout between each tile using special circular handheld saws made in Germany. The dust shrouds on these saws kept the work area dust-free and clean throughout the entire process. Next, it re-grouted the floor with specialty colour-matched epoxies from Bellinzoni (Epox 2000) and used the same product to repair and patch up the surface cracks and other imperfections. Once this was done, it removed the excess epoxies with diamond abrasives.

As it moved on to the restoration stage, Stone Doctor used a Coor & Kleever single-disc grinding machine and seven different grits of diamond abrasives to prepare the floor for polishing. Then it relied on Coor & Kleever’s KM Marble Polishing Powder to restore shine to the floor and followed up with a surface impregnating treatment using Bellinzoni Idea Gold, a specialised nano-tech stone penetrating sealer to protect the floor from absorbing stains. Coor & Kleever’s K2 Crystallisation Liquid was the final touch to the finish.

The work itself was intensive and multi-faceted but the real challenge was the unavoidable constraints around the working environment. Space was very tight. The landlord also made it clear that Stone Doctor was only permitted to work on Sundays or after hours on weekdays. After each day was, a complete clean up had to be done and removal of all the equipment from the project site so it would be business as usual when the building opened the next morning. The lack of storage space and no water supply on site meant that Stone Doctor was hauling its equipment and water drums while trying to fit them into the narrow space. Despite the challenges, it successfully completed the project within eight weeks and to a standard that satisfied its client and the other owner-occupiers of the building.