Water marks on granite worktop

Hi,

I've had some "absolute black" granite worktops installed in the kitchen - the glossy type. I've noticed that sometimes where I've left wet things on the surface slight white water marks have appeared. They're only visible in certain lights but they're annoying. Does this mean that the stone hasn't been properly sealed? I'm planning on giving the installers a call, but I just wanted to check here first for advice.

Reply to
Martin Pentreath
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The message from "Martin Pentreath" contains these words:

I bet if you read the leaflet that comes with it there will be words to the effect that you may get watermarks from time to time.

Reply to
Guy King

As far as I know, the granite is just polished and not sealed. First thing I did with ours was apply a coat of Lithofin Stainstop

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you really need to follow the instructions to the letter and NEVER leave it on longer than it says because if it "goes off" you're stuffed!

At the same time of ordering the "stain stop" I also purchased a pot of Lithofin "easy clean" which cleans the stuff up superbly and can be used daily if required, and.... for special guests... I get out my tub of "Lithofin MN Polish Cream" It gets done every few months because it's bloody hard work by hand (one day I'll get one of those electric car polisher things) but is well worth the effort knowing it's adding to the impregnable layer to protect our granite investment.

p.s. it ain't cheap stuff, but so far the above have lasted over 12 months, and it's far cheaper than new granite worktops.

:¬)

HTH Pete

Reply to
PeTe33

Thanks, looks like good stuff, I think I shall be ordering a pot. Looking around on the lithofin website there doesn't seem to be a product to remove any existing watermarks. Is it just a matter of learning to live with them, or does anyone know of a way to get them out before the sealing.

Reply to
Martin Pentreath

I don't know personally, I'd expect one of the many on-line granite suppliers would be able to give you an answer if your own installer can't (though i'd have thought he would have the answer)

Cheers Pete

Reply to
PeTe33

Granite can't be sealed. Is watertight already.

Either you have applied a treatment that itself is damaged by water, or you have lime scale.

Try a bit of descaler on it.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Fit a water softener. When hard water evaporates, it leaves behind any calcium, which forms white deposits. The white deposits can be scrubbed off, or will dissolve in acid, although you probably don't want any acids near your expensive worktops!

Christian.

Reply to
Christian McArdle

It still has many cracks and "crystaline" type features. I know of one person that has a permanent red wine stain in her granite top that won't polish off/out.

Reply to
PeTe33

True for real granite but a lot of natural stones are sold as granite but they are not. It's quite usual also for black stones to be doctored with some kind of shoeshine to make them blacker, this will fail in time.

The mere existence of water marks points to a fake "granite".

Many of the fake "granite" have calcite in them, if this is the case then the descaler will dissolve holes on it.

Test first in a non visible area, any bubbling or loss of shine is sign of the presence of calcite.

Reply to
Yuki

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