Frederick M. Hueston, PhD  

Stone Care Consultant 

I was making my weekly trip to the “big box” store when my cell phone rang. “Stone Detective here, can I help you?” 

Just as I said that (a little more loudly than usually, speaking over the noise), one of those orange vested sales guys came up to me and as they are trained to do, asked me if I needed any help. It seems when you want these guys they’re never around, but when you’re busy, as I obviously was, talking loudly into my phone, they’re right there to help. I gave him the universal sign that I was on the phone and he walked away mumbling something under his breathe. Geez…

The guy on the phone said he had a problem with a new marble floor. Apparently this was installed in a new house and the marble floor had been covered for quite some time. He went on to tell me that when they removed the plywood and plastic covering the floor that all along the edges the marble had pit marks and the builder refuses to take responsibility. He asked if I could come over and take a look and see what caused these marks. I told him I could easily swing by on my way back to the office.

I finished shopping and bought yet another set of screwdrivers and headed out to my ole Woody to head over to Mr. “Pit Mark’s” house.  

Holy-Moly… I pulled up to this huge mansion. The house was as big as small hotel. It was ginormous. I got out of my Woody, feeling like a rube in the Big City for the first time, and walked up to the front door. I have never seen a door this big. It had to be ten feet tall, with this huge brass circular door knocker on it. Kind of reminded me of that scene in the movie, Young Frankenstein, where Gene Wilder picks up Terry Garr and heads for the front door. Well, those of you who have seen the movie know what I’m talking about… And those of you that don’t, run to YouTube to look it up. I had to see for myself if the knocker worked, and sure enough, it did. Within seconds a tall, dark and not so handsome gentleman answered the door. He had this deep voice and didn’t really sound like the guy I talked with on the phone.

Sure enough he was only… The Butler. Yes people still have Butlers. He said he was expecting me and told me to follow him. He led me into the kitchen where this older couple was slurping down a bowl of cereal of some sort. They both looked up at me with ludicrous milk mustaches… which almost made me start laughing at them. But, I composed myself and walked over and introduced myself.  He just gave me a blank look, blinked a couple of times and said, “Oh… OK,” and led me into the living room. The living room was the large room and was wall to wall white marble. It appeared to be a Thasos white but it had a very distinct large crystal appearance. He pointed to a section along the wall and said, “That is what I was telling you about.”

I bent down and sure enough there were these tiny pit marks. I started looking across the floor and I noticed a pattern. These marks were along the wall and in several straight lines running across the floor. I thought I knew where these were coming from, because I’d seen this before. I asked him how the floor was covered. He told me that they put down plastic and taped the plastic with masking tape and then covered it with plywood. I asked him if there was any other marble in the house that was still covered. He replied, “Oh, yes, the guest bath still is covered.”  I asked him if I could take a look. He led me to the guest bath where it was covered just as he described to me. I bent down and pulled up some of the tape– and low and behold, there were the same pit marks as I saw in the living room.  I looked at the sticky side of the tape and there were tiny marble chips adhered to the back. I called him over and said that this that the tape has been down a long time and the glue on the tape adhered to the marble and when the tape was removed it pulled part of the marble with it. I told him that the marble might be able to be repaired but chances are they would have to replace it.  Well, that was an expensive lesson to learn, but another case solved. As an afterthought I told him before he removes the tape from the rest of the floor to wet the tape with some alcohol and slowly pull the tape off.

The Stone Detective is a fictional character created by Fred Hueston, written to be entertaining and educational. He has written over 33 books on stone and tile installations, fabrication and restoration and also serves as an expert for many legal cases across the world. You can send any email comments to him at fhueston@stoneforensics.com