Granite worktops

ryder72

Quartz prices cannot be compared to granite prices. Granite prices are driven by supply and demand. There is a lot of very garish 80's style granite that no one wants now and its abundant making it very cheap to buy. Then there are granites mined in Arctic Canada, Norway or deep in Brazil which are gorgeous, in huge demand and mined in very expensive and limited supply locations making then very expensive. All quartz (except some of the cheap rubbish) is made using the Breton process so manufacturing costs are pretty middle of the road but generally speaking mid priced branded quartz will cost about the same as a popular jet black granite.

Star Galaxy is incomparable as no one (I know of) make a quartz worktop with copper/gold sparkle. Star Galaxy is found only in a small area of about 50 sq km in SE India so there is relatively limited supply and strong demand keeping prices are. Its worth paying for as it always looks gorgeous.

dirty_magic

ryder72 wrote: »

Granite being porous is the biggest lie that gets peddled around, to a great extent by worktop fabricators who often make better margins by selling unbranded chinese quartz which is arguably worse.

While its technically true that granite can be porous its also true that drinking water out of a river will give you poisoning from heavy metal contamination.

A good supplier will seal granite and only a small percentage of granite ever sold is of the highly porous type. Most granite is black or grey and this is probably the least porous type of granite. So buy what you like rather than what someone will have to believe is a better product.

As for quartz being better - wait till you see some of the Chinese rubbish being pedalled.

I'm only going by the research I did and all the questions I found about how to get stains out of granite. I didn't want to take the risk because I do tend to make a mess when I cook and we're having light worktops.

I don't necessarily think quartz is better, I think granite looks lovely but I'd be so annoyed if I stained it!