Hard Lessons

Let’s just look at the excuses foretold to me by the ones on the hook for the problem.

1. The stone just needs to be sealed. Let me assure anyone who sells stone, and let me say this clearly and in plain English: A true and good stone sealer doesn’t change the color of the stone. Adding sealer to a stone won’t make it darker. Also, on this particular stone (Black Absolute), it won’t absorb any sealer anyway; so any true sealer will sit on the surface. Verdict: not likely!

2. The water-treatment plant is using too much chlorine. OK, “maybe” this could be a cause, if it were happening to every unit in the 20-story building and in every other condo in a four-block radius (as well as in every mansion on the street). I mean really; if someone cuts the cheese in a crowded elevator, why would only one person notice?

I can appreciate that not everyone has a Black Absolute countertop, but I do know of many others in the same neighborhood with one. This wasn’t the only condo in the area with a black granite countertop, and I hadn’t heard of any others with the problem. Verdict: not likely!

3. There’s a protective wax on the surface. I have heard and seen that one too, but those protective coatings won’t permanently stain a black countertop to grey. And, any compound will remove it easily and restore the deep black of a true Black Absolute. . Verdict: not likely!

I went in to do a test of the countertop, as opposed to being all gung-ho and promising over the phone that I could fix it. It quickly developed that even the mildest of compounds would turn the countertop grey. Even water from the tap, plus the bottled water I tested, turned the black to grey.

So what did everyone learn from this experience? Well, I can tell you that the customer learned to live with an Absolute Grey counter top instead of Absolute Black.

But I came out of the situation learning a few things:

• Price to do tests! I did this test for free to find out that I couldn’t solve this particular problem, and got nothing for my work.

• Don’t associate with companies that have a habit of dealing in cheap material. It makes it look like you’re in league with crooks (and this particular stone company was out of business in three months).

• Just because someone owns a luxurious condo in a rich neighborhood, their frugalness should not become my problem. Although they can save a few pennies at first, they can’t make a $5 stone into a $20 stone, and you’ll end up owning that $5 stone if you don’t recognize your situation and attempt to remedy a situation created by someone else’s cheapness.

• Our industry is a small one. For years, I never even knew that M**** knew of this particular job. So if you screw up in this business, it won’t be long until a lot of people know. As Mark Twain should’ve said (but, alas, didn’t), “A lie will make it halfway around the world before the truth has had a chance to put its boots on.”

• Someone who sells an inferior product will tell you anything to make you feel you got a deal. I am amazed at, but never swayed by, the many stories I am told as to why a cheap stone doesn’t act like an expensive one, which leads me to……

• In the stone business, you get what you pay for! I can’t count the number of stories on installation failures that all begin with the same phrase “I got a really good deal on this stone.”

• Buying your favorite Stone Business columnist a double Crown and Diet Coke will get you five-to-ten minutes of unedited opinion.

• If you keep your stick on the ice (as a goalie), an opposing player can’t slide one in on you.

See you next month.

Tom McNall is founder and owner of Great Northern Stone Care, a Huron Park, Ontario-based stone-cleaning and -restoration company servicing all of southern Ontario. Tom offers corporate and private consultations, serves as a trainer for the Marble Institute of America, and is also on the organization’s board of directors. McNall can be reached at stone_rx@earthlink.net.

This article appeared in the March 2010 print edition of Stone Business magazine. ©2010 Western Business Media Inc.

Get the best in insightful and informed coverage of the stone industry every month with Stone Business magazine. Sign up for a free subscription (or renew your current account) and don’t miss a single issue – just click here.