Daily cleaning for granite countertops (Home Depot, cleaner, furniture, stone)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Finally got rid of my formica! What's good to use for daily cleaning/sanitizing w/o messing with the sealant on my new granite? I used to spray counter with Windex or 409 but I'm guessing I can't use those on granite. I'm hoping there is a product in the same price range of Windex I can use...any ideas? Thx!
Congrats on the granite, I am sure it is beautiful!
Home Depot has a product that is spray on that works great for us! I don't remember name but it is in black packaging and usually sold near where they sell granite.
Also be sure to use soft cloth to prevent scratches.
Daily? Soap and Water. Low Cost. Works fine. The stone is hard as hell. Needs very little care other than an occassional re-sealing. I would really be cautious about adding anything commmercial just to make yourself feel good. It builds up, dulls the finish, and has to get stripped off at some point.
I have quartz, and I don't know if the care is the same, but I think Windex works great and seems gentle. Every so often I use a wipe made for stone counters.
I use a couple of product by Rock Doctor that I really like: One of their products is a cleaner (spray) and the other is a polish. The polish leaves a residue of sealer on the granite each time it is used - I used it about once every 2 to 4 weeks - spray, wipe off.
Just a couple of tips about the things that will harm your granite: Fats and Acids
Fats like oil, butter, bacon grease, grease spatter - can stain some unsealed granite. Make sure that grease does not stay on your granite for very long....use your granite spray cleaner to remove all oil or grease residue.
Acids like lime and lemon juice, vinegar, etc. can etch granite. Use granite cleaner to remove any acid-based liquids from your granite - including things like pineapple juice.
Dishwashing soap (as in washing granite with a sponge or cloth with dishwashing soap) will eventually build up and your granite will appear hazy (this is really easy to see on black granite). Using the granite cleaner every few days will remove the soap residue.
I am with the WATER crowd. I know there are germ-aphobe types that will say you need to disinfect evveerything all the time but I generally use a CUTTING BOARD under ANYTHING that is drippy / messy and that means rarely is anything other than crumbs to deal with on the granite itself.
If you look at the ingredients on basicallly ANY household cleaner rarely is anything dissolved in less than 90% water anyhow. There are companies making an absolute FORTUNE on selling TINY amounts of soap dissolved in HUGE amounts of water as "ultra gentle stone care cleaner". SHEESH!
A properly selected stone countertop surface will NOT be reactive and if your tastes run toward a porous type of surface there are increasingly sophisticated types of sealers that bond to the stone and make it all but impervious to darned near anything you'd find in any kitchen. If you do go that route realize that when you buy such a product with its "phenomonal" warranty you are really investing in the future of the firm that backs that warranty up and if you don't have evidence that the firm will be around then the money is probably better spent elsewhere...
Daily? Soap and Water. Low Cost. Works fine. The stone is hard as hell. Needs very little care other than an occassional re-sealing. I would really be cautious about adding anything commmercial just to make yourself feel good. It builds up, dulls the finish, and has to get stripped off at some point.
I wipe off the counters. Period.
Exactly right. All that is needed is wiping the counter with a clean rag or small towel soaked in warm soapy water (liquid dish soap). Whatever the OP does, don't use vinegar, or bleach. He can also use the granite cleaner/sealer sold at Home Depot (mentioned above), if he likes, but it's not really needed.
Something else about soap/water: it removes cooking oil from the counter, and leaves behind a beautiful shine. Also, granite tops are great places knead bread dough and things like that. Just clean the area with a clean rag soaked in hot water, and any soap in there will be removed.
Poultry and fish can leave bacteria and other stuff on the granite's surface, so I use one or two of the Clorox pre-soaked towelettes that remove bacteria (sold at Walmart and other places), and rapidly wipe the counter clean. Immediately after, I again clean the counter with a towel soaked in soapy water to make sure any traces of the Clorox anti-bacterial is also removed. But as mentioned above by another poster, it does not take much effort to keep the granite top clean, and nothing fancy is needed.
Last edited by RayinAK; 05-11-2012 at 10:12 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
