Years ago we lived in a house with Granite counters in the kitchen and they were smooth and glossy everywhere with no obvious surface defects or damage --- that is the extent of my experience looking at granite. Recently, in our different home today, we upgraded our builder-tile counters to Granite that we bought at Arizona Tile and had it installed by one of their recommended contractors. We picked the Granite in the warehouse where they are standing on edge so you are looking Straight-on, Perpendicular to the surface.
After installation we noticed 2 issues:
(1) a corner repair that the Fabricator Crew or the Installer Crew did that they didn't tell us about before installation. By daylight it is hard to see so I took a picture below in mixed light (Flood light behind camera, and a Black light next to the repair.) The resin they used glows under UV illumination whereas the Granite does not and is only visible from the ambient white light. To me it seems clear that this is a repair from chips made during routing the edge. Three of the corners are like this although this one is by far the worst. Unfortunately this is right where I'll see it 20 times a day for the next 20 years.
(2) a surface defect that is everywhere on the counters, literally in thousands or perhaps tens-of-thousands of spots. You only see these when looking Edge-on, almost Parallel to the surface. Most of these are areas of low-gloss, some with tiny pits. The numerous 'low-gloss' areas are 0.001 to 0.003 " deep and range in area from small spots to several square inches. The far-fewer 'tiny pits' are up to 35 thousandths of an inch or more deep. What draws the eye when walking into the room, with the lighted Window now behind the counter, are the many 'low gloss' areas. My wife first pointed these out as 'the counter looks dirty.' To me it appears that when the raw Granite was ground down to the nominal 3/4" thickness the operator stopped the process about 5 thousandths of an inch too early and moved onto the polishing step too soon.
Here is a picture of the worst 'repaired' corner:
Here are two pictures attempting to show the 'low gloss' and 'tiny pits' issue. They don't do justice to how awful the surface looks to the eye along a parallel view, like when walking up toward the counter with a light behind it.
I have the Project Manager from the installation contractor coming over to discuss this on Monday (today is Saturday.) As I mentioned our previous Granite counters that we lived with about three years looked perfectly smooth. Do these 'low gloss' and 'tiny pits' issues look like quality issues to you? Was I just 'lucky' to have had prior Granite counters that looked perfect? To me this smacks of poor quality management at many different stages. The supplier, for sending an unfinished counter to Arizona. Then Arizona, for failing to do an in-coming and out-going material quality inspection. Then the Installer, for also failing to do those two inspections. For the corner repairs I fault the Installer for trying to hide the damage created during fabrication. If they had shown me and asked 'is this ok to install?' I would have said 'no.' They could have recut the edge about 1/8" shorter and rerouted it properly and that would still have fit nicely in the space required.
So ... what do you think I should do?
[This message has been edited by Notorio (edited 09-19-2020).]
Pass You cant even repair that. Its poor quality and should be rejected. I have never dealt with large slabs. Mostly just large cutting boards but any crack or pit will hold food and be very hard to clean. That is the exact opposite of what you want in a kitchen counter. Any counter.
Edit Plus if it looks like this now how long before one of those develops into a crack that causes the counter to be unsafe? Its a natural stone and depending on the quality the surface may not look perfect but pits and cracks that size I would reject it.
[This message has been edited by Jake_Dragon (edited 09-19-2020).]
Pass You cant even repair that. Its poor quality and should be rejected. I have never dealt with large slabs. Mostly just large cutting boards but any crack or pit will hold food and be very hard to clean. That is the exact opposite of what you want in a kitchen counter. Any counter.
Edit Plus if it looks like this now how long before one of those develops into a crack that causes the counter to be unsafe? Its a natural stone and depending on the quality the surface may not look perfect but pits and cracks that size I would reject it.
Yup. Don’t fall for any of that “It’s a natural material and “imperfections” are part of its beauty!”
Jake is right. Sanitarily, that is the exact opposite of what you want in a food preparation surface.
It appears that the store to you for.......granite Those are unacceptable. Get them returned and go with quartz.
Granite, is porous. It will always have very tiny defects (openings) in it. Quartz is not porous. The only down side to quartz is that it can be damaged by high heat from cooking pans... that, and the cost.
Granite will have imperfections. Their "patches" are very poorly done though. They should be using a resin that can be dyed and dries with a polishable finish. That looks like they used one of those kneadable epoxy sticks and just thumbed it into the voids. Personally, the granite isn't quite the grade I'm used to seeing. I've had to do some small imperfection fills. From time to time through owners use, they may break through to a void underneath the surface that could not be seen. I have done the dye and fill. Just never anything quite as extensive as what you have there. They should be able to do a hell of a lot better than what they did.
[This message has been edited by Khw (edited 09-21-2020).]
We recently had our new home totally renovated which included new counter tops. What the wife chose was a natural stone with a lot of "color" and streaks in it. Sorry, I don't remember what it was, the name ends with "zite". It wasn't the stone I would have picked but, when you initially say, get whatever you want, it's tough to argue what gets bought. Shrug..............
Both of those "issues" are normal. I deal with c/top installations on a regular basis in my job (although I'm not a c/top installer/vendor). The "pits" are normal as others have said. The installer can fill in very small pits but I don't see anything that would require a new slab. Fixing minor corner/edge chips are also normal. It's all part of the process.
Both of those "issues" are normal. I deal with c/top installations on a regular basis in my job (although I'm not a c/top installer/vendor). The "pits" are normal as others have said. The installer can fill in very small pits but I don't see anything that would require a new slab. Fixing minor corner/edge chips are also normal. It's all part of the process.
Normal for builders grade granite. A higher grade would have less pitting. But if you picked the slab....you might be out of luck.
Update - the installer Project Manager came and saw the issues. There is a follow-up review on Tuesday that will include a rep from Arizona Tile. I'm not pushing for New Slabs but for them to grind the surfaces In Place about 5 ths of an inch then to polish to finish. My son who remodeled stores for a living said he has often seen this done with excellent results. I can accept that there will be 'some' pit defects left but not literally tens-of-thousands of them, with many at the square-inch of area level.
Update - the installer Project Manager came and saw the issues. There is a follow-up review on Tuesday that will include a rep from Arizona Tile. I'm not pushing for New Slabs but for them to grind the surfaces In Place about 5 ths of an inch then to polish to finish. My son who remodeled stores for a living said he has often seen this done with excellent results. I can accept that there will be 'some' pit defects left but not literally tens-of-thousands of them, with many at the square-inch of area level.
Good, I hope it all works out for you.
My only advice is to remember, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Any updates on this? As I stated previously, we just had our home renovated and new counter tops were installed. In one bathroom, they screwed up and cut the stone to the wrong dimensions, the sink was no longer going to be in the same location and the holes for the hot and cold water were way off. Well, that counter top came out of a $4K slab of stone and my wife was pissed about it. No way they could make it right using what was left. The chances of finding a matching or similar veined slab of stone was remote according to the place we bought the stone. BTW, the charge for cutting the stone is equal to the price of the stone so, it cost us $4K bucks to have all these counter tops cut. They said they charge that much in case they screw it up, consider it insurance plus labor. Well, they screwed it up. We (I) demanded a replacement slab of stone. We didn't get an exact match but got close enough for my wife to agree. They also wanted to keep the counter top they screwed up. I wasn't about to let that happen. They eventually agreed with me and I am now in the process of building two side tables using that same slab of stone. In our case, the squeaky wheel got greased.
Any updates on this? As I stated previously, we just had our home renovated and new counter tops were installed. In one bathroom, they screwed up and cut the stone to the wrong dimensions, the sink was no longer going to be in the same location and the holes for the hot and cold water were way off. Well, that counter top came out of a $4K slab of stone and my wife was pissed about it. No way they could make it right using what was left. The chances of finding a matching or similar veined slab of stone was remote according to the place we bought the stone. BTW, the charge for cutting the stone is equal to the price of the stone so, it cost us $4K bucks to have all these counter tops cut. They said they charge that much in case they screw it up, consider it insurance plus labor. Well, they screwed it up. We (I) demanded a replacement slab of stone. We didn't get an exact match but got close enough for my wife to agree. They also wanted to keep the counter top they screwed up. I wasn't about to let that happen. They eventually agreed with me and I am now in the process of building two side tables using that same slab of stone. In our case, the squeaky wheel got greased.
Rams
I will be squeaking Tuesday when the slab and install reps come to see it. I'll be pushing for a regrind and repolish on site but we shall see ...
Those are unacceptable. Get them returned and go with quartz.
