CASE STUDY: Flamed granite surface at new condo-hotel/class A office

PROBLEM: Protection of the flooring surface from grease and traffic patterns

This was a new building with a lot of foot traffic, as it is an upscale Class A office building with a residential component and restaurants 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 challenging surface to keep clean, as it has natural ridges formed 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 preserving the stone’s color and texture. This stone is light gray.

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 cause significant disruption. Cleaning during the daytime would be next to impossible, as it would be too disruptive. Cleaning at night would disrupt both restaurants and residences.

SOLUTION:

This surface needs a long-term preservation approach. 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. Sealing or coating the surface will darken it a bit. The choice is between darkening the entire surface consistently with sealer or coating* OR allowing grease and dirt to darken only the traffic patterns, resulting in an inconsistent look.

By definition, sealers are only temporary and must be reapplied at a minimum, on an annual basis. We proposed our surface coating process*, which will be more durable and a longer-term approach to this problem. If desired, a non-skid aggregate can be added to increase the slip coefficient (reducing slip).