LESLIE: Carolyn in Texas is having some issues with a sink. Tell us what’s going on with it?
CAROLYN: Well, it’s an old – it’s probably 40 years old – manmade marble and the sink is separate from the countertops; there are two large countertops in there. And I had a man look at it but he said he would just leave it. But it’s stained and it’s real porous and I was just wondering if there’s something that you know of that we could seal it off with. I even thought about using car wax to see if that would help any but I just didn’t know if there was something that …
LESLIE: And you say that it’s marble?
CAROLYN: Uh-huh, it’s the manmade marble; you know, the poured countertops like they use now all the time. But usually they pour it all in one piece and this is in two pieces. The sink is separate and they don’t do that anymore; least they don’t here.
TOM: Right.
CAROLYN: And so – and he said, “I would just seal it off,” but I don’t know anything to seal it with and he didn’t either.
LESLIE: Have you – well, if you seal it, you’re just going to be sealing in those stains. I mean are you able to get it to a point where it’s clean enough that you could seal it?
CAROLYN: I’ve gotten it pretty good but not – I mean – and if I thought there was something I could seal it with, I would try even a little bit – I used a liquid cleaner, Mean Green, and then I used bleach and that kind of thing. And I’ve got it pretty good and I dry it out every time I use it. But you know, that’s just a temporary thing. So I thought it needs to have a sealer over it, at some point.
TOM: How about a stone sealer?
LESLIE: Yeah. If you go to a website, Stonecare.com, and …
CAROLYN: Stonecare.com?
LESLIE: Stonecare.com. And treat the surface as if it were actual marble, because you’re dealing with something as porous as traditional marble, and they’ll have a sealer on their website that you can easily apply to that sink. But you have to make sure that you’re super-happy with the cleanliness of it because once that sealer is on, those stains are in.
CAROLYN: OK, yeah. Well yeah, I knew that, so – OK. Well, I’ll do that then.
LESLIE: And remember, the lighter the color the marble, the more often that it needs to be sealed.
CAROLYN: The more often it needs to be sealed?
LESLIE: Mm-hmm.
CAROLYN: OK.
LESLIE: So if it’s a light color, you’re looking at every two years; whereas if it were a darker color, it’s probably every five.
CAROLYN: OK. OK. Alright. Well that helps me. I’ll try that. (chuckles)
TOM: Good luck with that project, Carolyn. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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