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Customer: |
“Hello! Is this the marble cleaning
company?...” |
|
Mr.
Bertoli: |
“Why, yes … sorta!... What can I do for you
today, sir?” |
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Customer: |
“Well, we have marble floors in our foyer,
master bathroom, and in our shower stall. It’s not shiny any
more and I’d like to know if you could give me an estimate to come and clean
it …” |
|
Mr.
Bertoli: |
“It’ll be $200 plus Sales Tax!” |
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Customer: |
“What? … You charge that much for the
estimate? …” |
|
Mr.
Bertoli: |
“Oh no you misunderstand; that
IS the
estimate!... That is what I will be charging you to clean your
marble!” |
|
Customer: |
“Just like that?...Don’t you need to come
over
and take a look at the job?...” |
|
Mr.
Bertoli: |
“Not really. All I have to do is come over
with a mop for the floor, some scrubbing pads for
the shower, and a few cleaning supplies. The whole marble cleaning job
shouldn’t take me more than a couple of hours ...
All this, of course, for as long as you don’t expect your marble to be as
shiny as it was the day they installed it.” |
|
Customer: |
“What do you mean by that? Isn’t it going to
be shiner than now?...” |
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Mr.
Bertoli: |
“Nope: only cleaner than now. You’re asking
me to clean your marble, aren’t you?... Well, it’s going to be so clean that
you could actually eat off of it!” |
|
Customer: |
“Well, yeah ... but I thought it would become
nice and shiny...” |
|
Mr.
Bertoli: |
“Not by cleaning it, it won’t!... Okay, I was
just pulling your leg a little bit! ... I hope you
didn't mind too much: I like to kid around a lot! ...
Actually, I know exactly
what you’re looking for. You were just using the wrong expression: ‘marble
cleaning!’ There is no such a thing like ‘marble cleaning’ to bring the
shine back to your marble: it’s called marble restoration, or refinishing,
or re-polishing. Take you pick ... The fact is that the surface of your
stone lost its original finish due either to wear and tear (I bet you, folks
have this nasty habit of walking on your floors!), or acidic spills, or the
use of the wrong cleaning products, etc. Now the surface has to be re-ground
a little (to get rid of any small scratches and acid
stains) – it’s called honing – and then it has to be re-polished
to bring back the shine. Furthermore, Stone is
not polished by applying some sort of wax on it, but rather,
by abrasion and
friction, like gemstone... Are you beginning to get the picture now?...
The whole process is a heck of a lot more complicated then just cleaning” |
"Marble
Cleaning" is indeed a widespread misconception, which has never been
rectified by most merchants who deal with natural stone, because they either
forget, or neglect, or because,
even they, just don’t know any better. Don’t be
surprised! There are many stone dealers that haven't a clue
how to properly maintain the marble they sell you. And, amazingly enough, the same thing applies to many professional
contractors who install stone in people's houses.
Because of this misconception, and the consequent virtually
total ignorance on how to deal with natural stone as far as maintenance is
concerned, people have “unexpected” problems with their polished stones, and
they automatically think that such problems – since they look “dirty” – could
be solved by just “cleaning the marble.”
Would it surprise you
to know that statistics prove
that the most popular set of key-words that end-users of natural stone with some
sort of problem type in when searching the web through popular search engines,
such as Google, Yahoo, Altavista, etc. are: “Marble cleaning” And
I’m not talking by a small margin here. The next most popular set of key words
is a far, far, far second!
Of course, I don’t have a
problem with the average consumer's lack of understanding. After all, when I am a consumer myself I’m the stupidest
of the bunch! Where I do have a problem is when I realize that the
merchants and the contractors involved with natural stone are just as
ignorant! I believe that consumers have the right
not to know the intricacies of maintaining their marble. I’m a little reluctant to grant the same right to people of the
trade!
But, hey, maybe
that's just me!...
The funny thing is (maybe it’s not so funny after all) that
if people were taught by the dealers and contractors at least the
very basics about
real marble cleaning, then they wouldn’t have to look for
the wrong “marble
cleaning” later on!
So, do you want to learn about the real marble
cleaning?
In the
Helpful Hints section of our site you will find a free of charge short version
of our maintenance guidelines for residential stone installation. For the most complete set of information, however,
see the Educational Literature section for the complete guidelines – a 7
page document, which is considered by most as the industry benchmark.
Do that, and you will learn so
much about marble
cleaning techniques that you will be able to go out and hold seminars
about it!!
And no more (expensive) “marble cleaning” telephone
calls, either!
Ciao and good luck, |
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