Travertine Redux

By Tom McNall

Last time, we discussed the unofficial grading of travertine and learning to live with its natural holiness. Now, let’s take a look at how to live with travertine once it’s installed – whether or not you are/were aware of its imperfections.

First, if your stone is known as the Holiest of Holy Travertine and on the floor, prepare a budget to eventually flatten your installation and fill it with a quality product. But why flatten?

Tom McNallDoing a mass-fill project the right way on travertine will require overfilling the holes to allow for natural shrinkage of any glues or cement. The harder the fill material used in the process, the more you’ll need diamond pads to remove the excess. If you use too soft a fill (i.e. unsanded grout), you’ll end up with soft spots that wash out easy, leaving the floor dimpled.

If you try to remove a harder epoxy fill with resin diamond pads, but fail to remove the lippage as well, the hard sharp edges of the stone will break apart your plastic diamond pucks. Also, most resin pads will not cut through the excess fill left on the surface from polyesters and epoxies; the pads usually hydroplane over the plastic without opening up and exposing new diamonds to do the cutting (or shaving).

Another fear here is in being too aggressive in your choice of metal-bond diamond pads to remove the hard fill. If you try to cut (as opposed to shave) the glue with a low-grit metal bond, you run the risk of the larger-grain diamonds grabbing at the glue and pulling it right out of the holes. (You’ll also expose new holes as a pad digs deeper into the surface.)

Yes, removing the harder fills properly is time-consuming, and – on big jobs – seems like you’re wasting efficiency. But, in reality, you’re preventing more work and producing the best result.

Will everyone pay to have it done right? Not likely, but when it comes down to it, it’s better done right the first time instead of halfway right with faster repeat business.

How much can it cost to restore travertine the right way? There are far too many variables to pinpoint a dollar figure (size of holes, area covered, fill chosen, local labor pool, diamond tools), so let’s look at it another way: Travertine is something that restorers can take from a $2 ft² stone and transform into a $15-$20 ft² stone, if done properly.

Say what? Well, when it comes to marble, we can only make a $7 ft² marble look like a $7 ft² marble … or, if we stretch it or turn a honed finish into a polished one, we can boost its worth to $8-$9 ft². Same with granite.