Old flooring cleaning problem

[EricP]

A nice 19C tile floor that has been covered for 100 years by linoleum. The lino has welded itself to the tiles.( Bits of lino, hessian and lino

1 Something to clean the tiles?

2 Something to seal the tiles.

Any advice please?

[Paper2002AD]

Steam>1 Something to clean the tiles?

Steam cleaner?

Dunno - sorry

[Christian McArdle]

Read:

Buy from:

Christian.

[Andy]

I used brick acid on my Quarry tiles - worked very well indeed. This will dissolve some of the pointing between the tiles so this will almost certainly need replacing (with lime mortar).

I would strongly advise against sealing them though. They are almost certainly laid directly on earth (maybe a layer of lime/sand) with no DPM. Sealing the tiles will mean that moisture can not escape and will find its way out elsewhere - probably through your walls, causing damp problems elsewhere.

This type of floor was meant to breathe.

The traditional finnish for this kind of floor is a mixture of beeswax and turpentine - search google or look at

or SPAB or English Heritage etc

Andy

[EricP]

Thanks all, and particularly Andy. :))