Marble tile care/maintenance

[bonnie]

H and I are redoing our bathroom in a couple months. We love the idea of marble subway tiles on the shower walls. I started researching marble tiles and how to take care of them. The problem is I've been reading mixed reviews and advice on how to care for marble tiles in a shower.

Do you any of you have experience with marble tiles? Can you tell me what you do regarding sealing (how often do you do it, what brand, etc.) and what you do to clean them? Finally, with all that said, would you recommend doing it or should we just do the low maintenance white ceramic subway tiles?

Thank you!

[mrs.jacinthe]

@juno has marble in her kitchen and her bathroom (I think - my memory is hazy about the bathroom). She's a great resource.

[wawa]

Its a pain in the ass.

It's much less of a pain in the ass if you aren't a lazy slob like me though. You can't use most commercial bathroom cleaners - they'll etch it. Sealing isn't that big of a deal - not a ton of work, we use whatever brand they sold us with the tile (I don't remember what it was), and we do it yearly. Cleaning though? If you let the grout get grungy you are up shit creek because you can't use any of the strong cleaners that make cleaning a nasty shower an easy non-elbow grease intensive chore. If you keep up with it, it's no harder to clean than ceramic tile with a marble safe cleaner. Spray, wipe, done - it's when you don't keep up with it and things need to be SCRUBBED that you'll curse your pretty marble.

So...if you have a weekly chore chart that you actually follow? Go for it. If you clean once in a blue moon? nope, nope nope.

[bonnie]

Oct 7, 2015 12:56:16 GMT -5 wawa said:

Its a pain in the ass.

It's much less of a pain in the ass if you aren't a lazy slob like me though. You can't use most commercial bathroom cleaners - they'll etch it. Sealing isn't that big of a deal - not a ton of work, we use whatever brand they sold us with the tile (I don't remember what it was), and we do it yearly. Cleaning though? If you let the grout get grungy you are up shit creek because you can't use any of the strong cleaners that make cleaning a nasty shower an easy non-elbow grease intensive chore. If you keep up with it, it's no harder to clean than ceramic tile with a marble safe cleaner. Spray, wipe, done - it's when you don't keep up with it and things need to be SCRUBBED that you'll curse your pretty marble.

So...if you have a weekly chore chart that you actually follow? Go for it. If you clean once in a blue moon? nope, nope nope.

This is really helpful. Thank you. We can get a little lazy about cleaning the shower. I guess if we go for marble it would force us to clean more. Lol.

[treedimensional]

Just installed marble floors with dark grey grout in our half-bath. No shower or tub, and it's brand new, so I can't speak to maintenance issues yet; but I read wildly conflicting info online too. There was no consensus at all. Good luck.

[bonnie]

Oct 7, 2015 20:15:15 GMT -5 treedimensional said:

 but I read wildly conflicting info online too. There was no consensus at all.

Seriously! So weird.

[bonnie]

wawa
@juno
or anyone else

Can you tell me more about the sealing? How do you do it? How long does it take? Anything else you may feel is helpful. Thanks!

[wawa]

Oct 7, 2015 20:41:00 GMT -5 @juno said:

Oct 7, 2015 20:36:51 GMT -5 bonnie said:

wawa
@juno
or anyone else

Can you tell me more about the sealing? How do you do it? How long does it take? Anything else you may feel is helpful. Thanks!

I use a grout sealer in the bathroom and a stone sealer on the kitchen marble whenever water no longer beads up on the surface of either.  It can be a little tricky with the walls in the bathroom, but I sort of put a bead of water on the tip of my finger or on a knife or something and touch it to the grout and see if it soaks it up or whether it just sits on the surface.  The marble doesn't soak water up as much when it needs it, but the water definitely stops beading up.  So far I've been sealing every 6 mos. or so in the kitchen, once a year in the bathroom.  ETA; Oh, as far as how, it's just a liquid that wipes on then dries for a while.  I don't remember what the instructions say for each, but it's definitely not more than 24 hours of drying.  Takes 1 minute to apply.  ETA2: that stone sealer I bought and posted above says it will also work on grout on the Amazon listing.  It's pricey, but it seemed to be what the internet agreed was best.  Whatever you end up getting, be sure to follow the instructions.

What she said.

[poppypoppins]

We have a marble bathroom (floor, shower floor and wall, countertops) and I don't find it to be that much work. We remodelEd two years ago and it still looks grea, even the white grout! I use an old toothbrush or a magic eraser every once in a while to clean but that's about it. This post does remind me I need to seal the tile and grout! I wish I could post a picture but I'm new and haven't quite figure out how (I'm using my phone).

[FoxInFiji]

Yes everything wawa said! With any natural stone you should only use pH neutral cleaners on it or they will etch and/or stain overtime. This is especially problematic if you have hard water or minerals in your water because all of the cleaners used for those stains are far from pH neutral. Additionally, in a shower a lot of the products you use can etch/stain the marble if they aren't completely washed away. Shaving cream for example is very acidic and can damage the marble.

One alternative is use marble in other places to get a similar look. The sink countertop or the bathroom floor which will see traffic but not be bombarded with water everday.

Or you can do what we did and go with porcelain tile that looks like marble. It's cheaper, easier to install, and is maintenance free! We used a gray and white tile in the main bathroom:


And a cream and tan marble looking tile in the master shower (sorry I don't have a finished pic online):


The gray and white tile was just under $2/sf from Daltile. They don't carry that line anymore but they might have something similar. The tan marble is from Arizona Tile. Not sure if they still carry that line of tile.

HTH