Our Services
Solomon Moss Tiling cleans travertine floors across the San Diego metro, removing embedded grime, re-sealing the porous stone surface, and restoring the natural finish without damaging the material. Solomon Moss brings a 5-star rating backed by 31 verified reviews and a California contractor license to every stone cleaning job. The differentiator: Solomon personally oversees substrate prep and sealing, the two steps most tile flooring services rush or skip entirely.
Travertine is a calcium-based stone, which makes it beautiful and surprisingly vulnerable. Acidic cleaners (including vinegar, many grout cleaners, and generic tile flooring floor products) etch the surface on contact. You won't see the damage right away, but it builds into a dull, pitted finish that no amount of buffing fixes. Get the cleaning method right from the start, and your travertine lasts decades. Get it wrong, and you're looking at grinding or replacement far sooner than you'd expect.
Travertine isn't ceramic tile flooring or porcelain tiles flooring. It's a sedimentary stone riddled with natural voids. Those voids trap dirt, grease, and cleaning residue over time. Standard mopping pushes debris deeper into the stone rather than extracting it. Proper cleaning requires three things: a pH-neutral stone-safe solution, mechanical agitation with the right pad hardness, and thorough rinse extraction. Not a spray-and-wipe routine. If you're finding your travertine looks worse after cleaning than before, the method is the problem.
There's a real difference between wiping down travertine and actually cleaning it. Surface cleaning removes loose dust and light soil. That's what you do weekly. Deep cleaning reaches the grout lines, fills, and open voids where bacteria and staining compounds accumulate over months of foot traffic. Solomon Moss Tiling performs deep extraction cleaning using professional-grade equipment that lifts contaminants out of the stone rather than redistributing them across your floor. Most residential travertine floors benefit from a professional deep clean once every 12 to 18 months depending on traffic and use.
Cleaning travertine without resealing is like washing a car and leaving it out in the rain. You've done half the job. Travertine sealer creates a barrier that slows the absorption of spills, oils, and foot-traffic soiling. We apply a penetrating impregnator sealer after every professional clean, which bonds below the surface rather than sitting on top where it yellows and peels. The type of sealer matters too: high-gloss, matte, and natural-finish sealers all perform differently. We'll show you the options and let you decide.
Some travertine floors that look like they need replacement actually need restoration. Unfilled voids, minor etching, and surface scratches can be addressed through honing and fill work before a clean and seal. We don't promise to reverse severe damage, but mild-to-moderate wear is often restorable at a fraction of replacement cost. If the floor genuinely needs new tile, Solomon Moss Tiling installs porcelain tiles flooring, ceramic tiles flooring, natural stone, and more. You'll get an honest assessment, not a reflexive upsell.
The process is straightforward. We inspect the stone and grout condition first, then pre-treat any heavy staining. Mechanical cleaning follows with appropriate pads matched to your travertine finish: honed, polished, and tumbled travertine each require different pressure and pad selection. Rinse and extraction comes next, pulling the emulsified soils out of the stone. Once the floor is dry, we apply sealer and let it cure. You'll get specific care instructions before we leave, including which products are safe to use and which will etch your stone on first contact.
Travertine tile flooring for bathroom installations is gorgeous but demands more frequent sealing than dry-area floors. Soap scum and hard water minerals bind to unsealed travertine fast. We use a sealer rated for wet environments in bathrooms, showers, and pool decks, and we pay close attention to grout line condition. Deteriorating grout allows moisture to migrate under the stone and compromise the substrate. If we find cracked or receding grout during a cleaning job, we'll call it out before it becomes a water damage problem.