Summer Stone Dreams

After a long and grueling winter, summer is nearly here again!

Which means it’s time to prep those patios and outdoor areas to get ready for sun, social gatherings, and (most likely) food and drinks.

As the temperatures rise and spring yields green grasses and blue skies, the Stone Care Experts at MARBLELIFE invite you to evaluate your summer refuge. Are you treating your stone in the same way that you did during the winter? Did you know a change in the seasons often portends a change in care?

It’s easy to imagine that stone is a material that can “take care of itself.” It’s lasted thousands of years, withstanding time and siege and conquest. But there’s a difference between surviving and thriving, and while, indeed, the stone is a material more resilient than most, it too has its weaknesses. Whether slate, limestone, travertine, marble, flagstone, or soapstone, here are some summer month care tips to keep your stone in shape.

1. Summertime sealing

It’s beneficial to keep your stone on a regular maintenance schedule which should include regular sealing applications. However, during the summer months, one needs to take care to ensure your stone is not HOT when applying your sealer.  Whether waterborne or solventborne the carrier is designed and balance to allow enough time for your stone to absorb the sealer into the pores we are seeking to seal before the carrier evaporates.  Do this on a hot stone surface at mid-day, and you may not get the seal where you want it – in the stone.  The solution is simple; time your sealing for the cooler temperatures.  While we may have greater timing flexibility during the cooler portions of the year, the most important thing is that you remembered you needed to seal again.  Well Done.  BBQ-Master, Party-Planner, and Summertime social coordinator, you know that details matter, and you got this.  Now grab your MARBLELIFE Stone Sealer and check this off the party planning list as a job well done.

2. Grill cleaning

As soon as warm weather rolls around, many people like to head outdoors and spark up the grill. Summertime is the season of festivals and festivities – bringing people outside and together. Historically, nothing has brought more people together than the sharing of food. Make sure the event stays surprise-free by cleaning that grill top.  If your grill lives outside, it has likely provided a feast for the small fauna the entire offseason.  It’s time to clean up and get ready for a new season.  MARBLELIFE Marble & Travertine Intercare Cleaner, Granite & Quartz Cleaner, and Tile & Grout Cleaners are formulated to be tough enough to power through grease, fat, and grime to restore clean surfaces.

Oh, you shake your head in disbelief because you can see the baked on reminders of barbeques past?  MARBLELIFE has you covered MARBLELIFE SOAP & SCUM REMOVER will power through this SCUM to restore a clean grill in no time.  In fact, it works so well you are likely to offer to do your neighbors just to enjoy the satisfaction of powering through to a restored surface.  Feel what we feel daily, the joy of restoring a surface to like-new.  That is how well MARBLELIFE Soap & Scum Remover can tackle this job…oh yeah, it also blasts through shower soap build up like a knife through butter.

3. Sweep away loose debris

If you’ve ever swept outdoors in the presence of children, you may be familiar with the following question, why are you sweeping outside? Attempts to push Mother Nature back from encroaching upon our human spaces are not in vain. It’s because loose dirt and gravel that gets ground into the surface,  damaging stone, which may not be that big an issue outside, but once trapped in your shoe soles, you know it’s planning a sneak attack on your interior glossy marble and travertine surfaces.  Win the battle outside by clearing the enemy before they hop a ride under the kids, family and pets to reach their ultimate objective your beautiful floor.  Yes, kids we go to war to defend our homes and way of life, and we do so with the might broom.  Ok, hopefully that will result in at least one of the kids joining in.  Be sure you have a second broom, as the kids today are too smart to fall for the Huck Finn thing (why do they teach that in school anyway – as it removes one of our great strategies to get fences painted – but that’s another days writing).