How to Clean Marble Floors: Step by Step Guide

Welcome to another Home Flooring Pros How-To post. This week we’re going to look at the best way to clean marble flooring.

Marble floor cleaning is a little different from cleaning other types of tile flooring, but not difficult with the right tools and care.

First, it’s important to understand the specific qualities of marble. Natural marble, like other natural stones, is a porous material. This means that it is susceptible to absorbing liquids, which can result in staining. As you’ll see below, the first step in caring for your marble flooring, is to have it sealed.

Note that there is also cultured marble flooring available on the market. Cultured marble is a composite product that combines crushed stones and resins to look almost exactly like the real thing. It is less porous that natural marble, but still requires sealing.

Secondly, don’t be fooled by marble’s hardness into thinking it’s super tough. In fact, certain cleaning products, floor cleaning tools and grit can scratch or etch the surface of your marble flooring permanently.

So, how do you clean marble floors? In a word, gently. Here are the best practices for maintaining gorgeous floors.

1: PREVENTATIVE CARE FOR MARBLE

Preventative care is best.

• Ensure that your marble flooring is properly sealed during its installation. Some liquids, such as acidic juices or condiments, will still present a risk to a sealed marble flooring, but the added sealant will give you a little extra time to deal with such spills and stains.
• Remember to re-seal your marble floor once a year – this can be a DIY job, or you can use a pro if you prefer.
• Always use the sealant recommended by the manufacturer or retailer.
• Avoid tracking dirt and grit into your home by placing firm-bristled door mats outside each entrance.
• Wipe feet vigorously to remove dirt before walking on marble. Removing shoes is better yet.
• Add felt pads to furniture legs, and move furniture carefully when needed.

Pro tip: It’s not wise to place mats directly on marble. Some rubber backings interact chemically with stone and darken it. Secondly, if dirt gets beneath the mat, it will grind away at the marble surface when stepped on.

2: CORRECT CLEANING TOOLS  AND PRODUCTS FOR MARBLE FLOORING

Because marble flooring is a little more sensitive than other floors, choosing the right tools and products to clean your marble floor is essential. Once you have these, the actual job of cleaning marble flooring is easy.

MARBLE CLEANING TOOLS

• Microfiber cloths
• A microfiber or wool sweeper / dust mop
• Vacuum cleaner especially designed for hard flooring.
• A microfiber mop and bucket

MARBLE CLEANING PRODUCTS

• A mild flooring detergent with neutral pH, ideally one that has been recommended by the manufacturer or retailer.
• Hydrogen peroxide, ammonia, lacquer thinner and acetone for stains (see below)
• Superfine, 0000-rated steel wool for repairing etching (see below)

Home Flooring Pros Recommends:

The Big Wooly dry mop is nimble and lightweight, and much kinder to your marble floor than a bristle brush.

The Dyson Omni-glide vacuum cleaner is made for hard flooring. It has powerful suction to pull debris out of marble’s tiny pores, and fluffy rollers that are gentle enough not to scratch your marble floors.

O-Cedar Microfiber Cloth Mop is a highly rated, very gentle mop that has a collapsible handle for compact storage. The head can be washed 100+ times. The O-Cedar Quick Wring 2.5-gallon bucket is designed for use with this and similar mops.

Black Diamond Marble & Tile floor cleaner is our go to cleaning solution formulated for natural stone. It is easy to use – just dilute it in clean water according to the instructions, and then use your microfiber mop to gently work it over the floor. No rinsing is required, but you might want to follow up with a cold water rinse to avoid any streaks.

Pro tip: Be smart about your marble cleaning tools and products. Avoid harsh cleaners and abrasive tools at all costs! Bleach, citrus cleaners, vinegar and rough sponges are fine for greasy garage floors, but terrible for marble.

We’ve seen sites recommend mild dish detergent on marble, ½ cup per bucket of water. But we’ve found it’s not a great idea. Besides the endless suds that it creates, it can leave behind a residue that will dull floors. And to remove it, you need to use more water than is good for marble. As mentioned above, we recommend a purpose-made for stone cleaning detergent combined with soft microfiber cloths and mops for best results.

3: MARBLE CLEANING METHODS

Once you have the right tools for the job, you’ll find the business of keeping your marble floor clean straightforward. Here are the routines you’ll need to follow:

• Sweep daily or weekly (depending on household traffic)
• Vacuum weekly (if necessary)
• Mop regularly, at least once a week
• Polish marble flooring every 1 – 3 years (optional)

Dirt and debris act like sandpaper on marble, scuffing and dulling the seal and surface. Bob Villa offers this tip: “Sweep one time per week for each household member including pets. If you have a shoes-off policy and your pets aren’t heavy shedders, one time per two members will be sufficient. In short, sweep as needed to keep grit off the flooring.”

Contrary to popular belief, you can vacuum a marble floor provided you use a specially adapted vacuum cleaner with fluffy rollers and soft wheels to avoid any scratching. We would advise to nevertheless have a good microfiber or wool sweeper to hand and use this more often than the vacuuming.

When you’ve taken the first two steps, your marble floors will get dirty so slowly you won’t notice the incremental changes. But they will inevitably accumulate dirt, even in the tidiest homes.

That’s why it is important to mop on a regular schedule, even if the flooring doesn’t look like it needs it. Remember, when mopping, to not get the floor too wet. Rinse cleaner off (unless the instructions say not to) and then dry the floor with microfiber cloths.

Note that regular cleaning doesn’t eliminate the need to periodically reseal and polish your marble floor.

4: SPOT CLEAN STAINS AND SCRATCHES ON MARBLE FLOORING

For spot cleaning spills, a good idea is to always have a solution of your floor cleaning product pre-made and stored in a spray bottle ready to be used promptly.

As noted above, we also recommend always having the following products in your cleaning closet just in case: hydrogen peroxide, ammonia, lacquer thinner, acetone  and super fine, 0000-rated steel wool.

The key to avoiding stains is to clean up spills immediately using a dry, absorbent cloth or paper towel to blot, rather than spread, the spill. Then, spray your cleaner on the area, rinse and wipe it dry.

Here are some top tips for specific stains:

Wine, coffee, most food, pet urine: mix three drops of ammonia with 12% hydrogen peroxide, let it sit on the stain for no more than 30 minutes and then and wipe away with a damp microfiber cloth.

Oily foods, milk, condiments, cosmetics, paint: very carefully apply acetone or lacquer thinner, following up with your floor cleaning detergent and thorough rinsing with clean water.

Etching (scratches) and hard water stains: if you have just light scratching and water spots then you can buff those away using a dry superfine steel wool. But for more serious scratches you may need to consider repolishing. This can be done by a flooring pro, or you can do it yourself: read our step-by-step guide to marble floor polishing here.

We’re confident that if you follow the tips and advice here, you’ll keep your marble flooring looking great for years!

Remember: keep dirt and dust to a minimum, use the right tools and products and sweep and mop regularly, deal with spills efficiently.

OTHER TOP MARBLE CLEANING TIPS FROM AROUND THE WEB

House Beautiful | Maids.com | Reader’s Digest | Better Homes & Gardens

RELATED READING:

How to Clean Hardwood Floors | How to Clean Tile Floors | How to Clean Vinyl Plank Floors

About the Author:

Rob Parsell

Rob joined the Home Flooring Pros team in 2014 and is a freelance writer, specializing in flooring, remodeling and HVAC systems (read more).

“I’m the son of an interior designer and picked up an eye for design as a result. I started hanging wallpaper and painting at 14 and learned enough on the job to be the general contractor on two homes we built for our family and did much of the finish plumbing, electrical, painting, and trim work myself.”