Why We Carry Quality Granite

Myth: All granite is granite, and one slab is just as sturdy as another.

Fact: Not all slabs are equal in quality, even if they are the same type or color!

• Some granite is mined from a section of the mountain that has too many fissures, or compacts the granite together poorly, resulting in a finished slab that does not hold up well under fabrication. 
• Not all factories will mine, cut, and handle the granite the same. If a company is rough with the material, it may arrive to showrooms in cracked or warped condition.
• In order to make a certain shade of granite, some companies will cheat by dying the individual stone slabs. Unfortunately, this stone may bleach in areas that are exposed to sunlight years down the road. It also becomes hard for the fabricators to match the false color of the stone on the cut edges.
• Marble, travertine, and onyx are especially prone to cracking and breakage during mining, transportation, and fabrication, because they are formed of a more delicately bonded material. 

A yard of one of our favorite granite quarries in Brazil.

Some granite yards will carry any stone, especially if they can sell it cheaply, regardless of the quality that the slabs arrive in, and unaware of the complications that can arise during fabrication, installation, or under the wear and tear of daily use in a family kitchen. The slabs look to be of similar quality when a homeowner is shopping for that perfect color, but an experienced fabricator can often tell on sight if a slab is cracked, bowed, or crumbly.

Because our customers and fabricators are important to us, Natural Stone Source strives to only carry high-quality stone. If we notice that a bundle of granite is flawed, we return it to it's origin, and we will not stock that color lot again. This ensures that our frequent fabricators are able craft beautiful well made granite countertops. In the same vein (pun intended) we want every homeowner to be satisfied with sturdy kitchens and bathrooms that will last a lifetime.

For a look at our entire hand-selected variety of marble, granite, travertine, onyx, quartzite, and more, please visit our main website at www.nssgranite.com.

The Prefab Kitchen

In the granite industry, a countertop that has a laminate prior to being sold is called a "pre-fab". These countertops come in handy because the work necessary to turn granite into a countertop is mostly done. Once a homeowner has chosen a prefab color, all a granite installer needs to do with a pre-fab is to make a couple key cuts to fit it into place, and a cabinet can quickly have a luxury stone countertop.

Prefab Countertop Colors

Prefabs are produced in bulk, mainly in countries like China, and shipped to the United States at very low prices. These counters are also considered to be of reasonable cost, since the labor cost of custom fabrication is not really needed. The convenience of prefabs are great for the common and simple bathroom vanity, but are they equally economical in a kitchen?

The layout of a kitchen is the determining factor of whether prefabs are economical or not. A small galley kitchen might be easily re-modeled with prefabs, if one 8 foot stretch of granite can be installed along each side. This works because the two separately manufactured prefab granite countertops are most likely not from matching slabs of granite. In a galley kitchen, the walkway separating the two tops could be enough space to fool the eye into thinking that the prefabs are the exact same color.

Some prefab veining is hard to match at the seam.

When a kitchen has seams, or places where two separate pieces of granite need to be joined together, the prefab kitchen begins to run into issues. For example: by the time prefabs arrive to a Nipomo, California distributor such as Natural Stone Source, the chances of two different prefabs born from the exact same part of the mountain is incredibly unlikely. The countertops may look very similar, but when butted up next to one another, the color and pattern will probably vary quite a bit.

Prefabs with tiny colors and predictable pattern are tough to seam in the world of prefabs, but a prefab with any sort of stripe is another story altogether. A prefab with a vein running through it can never be adequately seamed to another prefab. To successfully seam the running pattern of granite veins, at least two uncut slabs of granite are needed in order for careful layout, and accurate matching at the seam.

These angles are impossible to accomplish from prefabs
 without extensive seaming. 

Any custom kitchen will be hard to cover with prefabs as well. If there are wall outcrops, varied countertop widths, bar tops, or a peninsula, you will find that prefabricated countertops carry a high waste factor. Furthermore, while prefab peninsulas are generally available, you may find the cost per square foot of material to exceed what you would pay for raw slab material, even when you end up with a prefab that is bigger or smaller than what you needed.

This 8" bartop width would have left a lot of waste
 if fabricated from prefab countertops.

Ultimately, a kitchen will look better with custom cut and fabricated granite slabs over the prefabricated counter. In order to get what you pay for, and be happy with your project, starting from scratch is really the best plan for stone kitchen countertops.

To see our selection of both prefab countertop colors as well as granite and marble slabs, please visit our main website www.nssgranite.com

Can Granite Countertops Burn?

Taking good care of your pretty granite countertops helps determine your actions in the kitchen. To preserve the look of the stone, home owners are sometimes afraid to set a hot pot or hot pan onto the surface of a granite counter for fear it will burn the stone, but this worry is unfounded. Granite is formed under intense heat, and can withstand a good deal of heat long after it is in your home.

In the shop, when granite slabs are being fabricated and formed into your counters, the blade cuts best if combined with running water. However, once the cut, the glue can only adhere to completely dry stone. In order to speed up the drying process, a flame torch is commonly turned onto the stone in order to dry every drop of water from the granite.

If a flame thrower does not injure the natural beauty of your stone, a hot pan can't really do any damage either!

The only situation that a flame torch might not be used to dry the water from a slab is when the slab is an engineered stone, also known as quartz. Companies that produce quartz slabs are Caesarstone, LG, Silestone, Cambria, Dal, etc. These slab surfaces are a combination of real granite and polymer glues, and the glues are the substances susceptible to burns. Because of this, quartz companies such as Cambria recommend a hot pad be placed between countertop and hot pans and crockpots.

The last instance where we have seen heat impact granite involved a black stone countertop that was exposed to direct California sun. A single slab of absolute black granite countertop covered the cabinets inside the kitchen, continued underneath a large window, and formed an outdoor bartop as well. The difference in temperature between the controlled household air and the open outdoors air, combined with a black surface absorbing the daily sun, caused the countertop to crack in many places. This situation was isolated, however, and does not represent a common occurrence in kitchens.

For a look at the stone we carry, please visit us at www.nssgranite.com