45 square meters of slate had been laid in a lovely new kitchen and then sealed, after a few days the slate started to develop white powdery residue throughout the kitchen. After many attempts to rectify the problem and many weeks of the problem getting worse the client was referred to Nu-Life by one of the uks leading natural stone suppliers.

After investigation & testing we found the problem was efflorescence with in the stone this could have been caused by a number of things.  Please see below my brief description of efflorescence and its characteristics:

Efflorescence – appears as a white powdery residue on the surface of the stone.  This powder is a mineral salt that has migrated to the surface with water.  Simply put, when water enters the setting bed or the stone becomes saturated with water, the water dissolves some of the salts.  The water rises to the surface carrying the salts.  When the stone dries and the water evaporates, the salts are left behind.

This condition is very common in new installations, stone floors that have flooded and from excessive amounts of water used during grinding and honing.  Efflorescence is generally not harmful to the stone, unless the slats deposit themselves in the surface rather than on top.  If this occurs a condition known as spalling results.  The deposit of salts in the stone is known as sub florescence.

Solution: usually there is no quick fix for efflorescence, and depending on conditions, the stone can take up year to dry out.  However we at Nu-Life have spend many years developing our specialist stone treatments and techniques and have now developed a unique system which will help treat and remove this common problem.