Sealant Trials - Lithofin Stain Stop Eco

After 1 week — Result after 1 week (Mid-September 2015)

Result after 14 months - end of trial - September 2016

Summary:

Application:

1st coat: Thin, watery, clear liquid that foams but no odour and rapidly dries

2nd coat: +1:15 hrs Didnt seem to bond at first but eventually took

Comments:

There's no denying the bird mess cleared away without needing any assistance, but this section of the trial is focussed on visual performance, and looking at the Sept 2016 image it's hard, nay impossible, to tell whether a sealant has been applied.

The natural shading of this piece of stone (compare and contrast the first photo with the one directly above) makes it hard to be sure whether there has been any visual impact, but when viewed in real-life, and looked at from all angles, the whole sample looks the same, that is, the sealant does not seem to have had any visual effect.

It's not even possible to say that the treated side of the sample is cleaner or has less algae than the untreated side. Overall, it's practically ikmnpossible to say just what this sealant has done. Maybe the clue is in the name: Stain Stop.......let's see......

Stain Trials:

stain application — Application of stains

stain after 4 hrs — Stains after 4 hours

wash off stain — Wash off stain with proprietary cleaner after 24 hrs

apply mosskiller — Apply mosskiller after wash-off

stain after cleaning — Stain 48 hrs after washing-off mosskiller and cleaning with proprietary cleaner

Comments:

Whoa! This is awful! It seems there has been buggerall in the way of stain protection from a product labelled as Stain Stop! How has that come about?

Every single stain, the oil, the fat, the ink and the wine, has left a mark, and the mosskiller has dumped a big rusty mark in the centre of the stone. There are products in this trial that make no mention of 'stain' in their name and they've performed better than this!

For a product whose key selling point is stopping stains, this does not look good. And compared to the stain results from the StainStop Plus , it looks even worse.

Note: Any apparent variation in colour of the flagstone is due solely to changes in the condition of the natural daylight at the time the photograph was taken.

Other than cropping to exclude extraneous background and adding a drop shadow to the cropped image, there has been NO post-processing of the original photographs.

Supplier:

Lithofin Stain Stop Eco is available from:

Extensive