Stone Care: Avoid Repair?
Because of the type of restoration work he does, Joseph Sembrat of Conservation Solutions tries to take the long view. For him, changes really need to begin with the architects and designers who may be specifying inappropriate stones, finishes or installation methods.
Sembrat cites the once-popular method of brush finishing for granite, which created micro-fissures in the surface which allowed water to freeze and thaw, ultimately causing the fascia to literally fall off.
“We really don’t know what long-term effects some of the surface treatments they’re doing now are going to react over time,” he says. “We’re not sure what problems we’re going to be dealing with in the future as a result of some of today’s techniques.”
Sembrat says people he’s talked to in the preservation community believe they need to be more active with the architectural community, including assisting with some of their committees writing specifications.
“We don’t want to undermine what they’re doing, but we can work with them and make their structures last longer and look better in the process,” Sembrat says. “If we can educate the architects, we believe they have a great deal of influence on what happens to those buildings afterwards.”
Jim Eldridge of Natural Stone Restoration hopes that education could also be extended to the sales people in fabricators’ showrooms, as well as retailers offering these products to the general public.
“I was in retailing for more years than I care to remember, and we had a tendency to get over the negatives real quickly,” he says. “They don’t want to come out and say, ‘In order to maintain this floor you’re going to have to have it cleaned and professionally sealed once a year, and you’re going to have to have it ground ever so often.’ By omission, they’re not being forthcoming with their customers.”
Eldridge, who volunteers to teach fabricators and retailers more about his end of the business, isn’t the only one to stress the need for better communications between the groups.
Scott Krupp of Exclusive Stone Care says through developing relationships with fabricators and tile stores, he’s able to get referrals to their customers early in the process when cleaning, sealing and a regular maintenance program can do the most good.
Tom McNall of Tom’s Maintenance says besides providing customers with better information so they’ll be more satisfied with their finished products, improved relationships can also translate into more profits for stone sellers.
If fabricators and stone retailers aren’t communicating with the end users about the need for on-going maintenance, then that certainly can be conveyed by installers who have also developed their own relationships with stone care professionals.
“There should be a strong connection between the installer and the restoration company,” says Don Harari of Royal Stone Care. “Ideally, when they finish the job, they would tell the homeowner, ‘I did my part, but from now on the stone needs to be maintained. We can refer you to a reputable company that does that.’”