CASE STUDY: Flamed granite surface at new condo-hotel / class A office
PROBLEM: Protection of flooring surface from grease and traffic patterns
This situation was a new building that will have a lot of foot traffic as it is an upscale class A office building that has a residential component, along with restaurants located on the first floor. The common term for this type of project is mixed use. They installed flamed granite on the first floor.
Flamed granite is a complicated surface to keep clean, as it has natural ridges that are produced by spalling or heating the granite. This process naturally opens the pores, creating a surface that is very susceptible to staining. Cleaning the surface therefore can be challenging, while maintaining the color and texture of the stone. This stone is light gray in color.
The foot traffic combined with the grease from the restaurants would make the gray surface black in as little as 30 days. This surface would have to be cleaned (degreased) every other week just to be presentable. This would create a lot of disruption. Cleaning during the daytime would be next to impossible as it would be too disruptive. Cleaning at night would disrupt the restaurants as well as the residences.
SOLUTION:
This surface needs a long term approach to preserving the surface. Therein lies the complication. Keeping the light gray surface combined with the ridges. Under these conditions, expecting the surface to stay clean or light gray is unreasonable. By sealing or coating the surface it will darken up a bit. The choice becomes darken the entire surface consistently with sealer or coating* OR have the grease and dirt darken only the traffic patterns resulting in an inconsistent look.
By definition, sealers are only temporary and will have to be reapplied at a minimum, on an annual basis. We proposed our surface coating process* which will be more durable and a more long term approach to this problem. If desired, a non skid aggregate can be added for increased slip coefficient (reducing slip).
