Not So Crystal-Clear

September 6, 2005

   Yes, Stone Business covers quartz, or engineered stone, or whatever term you like. And, yes, we consider the material part of the total stone palette. And, no, we’re not getting on some bandwagon that these materials are better than quarried/cut stone – or vice versa.
   When considering stone coverage, we continually look at materials. Some, like cast stone or cultured stone, are substitutes that can’t be worked like a cut slab. Others, such as solid surface, are completely artificial substrates with a pretty dim resemblance to granite or marble, although that’s improving annually.
   Quartz surfaces and other engineered stones (and I’ll get to the difference a bit later) are something else, both in composition and in the ability to be worked. The material’s also generated its share of controversy, but we decided that the material is part of the dimensional-stone industry and treated it as such since our first issue.
   And, because of this, I get the occasional irate letter or e-mail. It’s easy to spot the irate ones WHEN THEY ARRIVE TYPED IN ALL UPPERCASE LETTERS. I also see the same points in every missive, and it’s time to address them to everyone.
   • “I guess the advertising dollars got to you.” For some reason, some people out there think we’re some kind of non-profit benevolent organization. (Our accounting staff at the Stone Business Tower might agree.) We’re a business just like yours; we’re all for private enterprise and showing black ink on the bottom line. And, because this is a magazine with free subscriptions to the industry, we rely solely on advertising revenue to survive.
   So, we’re interested in advertising dollars wherever we can get them, but we don’t go out and pander to quartz/engineered stone vendors – or anyone else, for that matter – to promote just their side of the story. We sell ad space. We don’t bargain away news copy by the column inch.
   On average, we don’t get a lot of quartz/engineered stone ads. In one of our biggest issues – the July Buyer’s Directory – we had exactly one natural-quartz advertiser. (In the interest of full disclosure, we also had ads for solid-surface and ceramic parquet tile, but we’re not planning to expand the editorial focus into those two industries.)
   • “All these guys do is run down natural stone, and you’re helping.” The first part of that has a bit of truth to it. The second part doesn’t.
   Yes, I’ve seen some of the promotions from a few (but certainly not all) quartz/engineered-stone companies about how their material is better than granite or marble or the particular stone in question. We also don’t run them, and we don’t run the claims and counterclaims pitting one stone against another, either. We don’t believe you win a lot of business by running the other folks down.
   • “It’s all just fake stone.” Fairly simple words, of course. The phrase forms an argument that, at some point, is going to end up in a government hearing or a courtroom.
   Defining “natural stone” isn’t an easy task. The easiest solution is to put the tag on material that maintains its basic structure after quarrying, cutting, edging and polishing. (You can already see this isn’t going to be as easy as it first sounds.) That definition leaves out manufactured, reconstituted, artificial or man-made stone, doesn’t it?
   Well, no. More stone is entering the market with resin sealing and a vinyl scrim attached to the unpolished side. Sure, it’s quarried and cut into slabs. Look at it from the other side of the argument, though; are some of these materials artificially manipulated enough that they might meet some future legal definition of “natural?”
   How about lamination of stone countertops? Sure, it’s all done with natural-stone components, but is this also manipulating something that isn’t 100-percent natural, and creating a man-made product?
   Or how about some of the precious-stone products, where smaller pieces of absolutely beautiful natural stone is bound with resin, then worked into a slab? It isn’t quarried by block at all, so what is it?
   And, in the same, ahem, vein, how about the non-quartz engineered stone, using more than 95 percent of granite, marble or other stone that can show nature’s imperfections in another way? Is it real, or is it, well, what?
   OK, I’m picking nits here, but nits are the foundation of official definitions and lawsuits. Fake is a pejorative and dangerous word. Proceed with caution.
   • “Let them get their own association.” Do we really want that? Take a look at some of the deep pockets in quartz surfaces. Where’s the benefit in creating more of an us-vs.-them confrontation?
   The Natural Stone Council, for example, is doing great work in promoting traditional materials to key audiences. With its current funding, however, it’ll take the group well past a decade to spend what one quartz producer spent for one television commercial and big-box-store promotion this year. If people want to talk war, be prepared to start writing big, big checks.
   And while we’re at it, let’s stop with the blowtorch test, where you can burn a hole in a quartz surface with enough time on your hands and a flame hot enough for pipe sweating. Unless you’re planning to make crème brulee for 10,000, a residential kitchen isn’t going to face that kind of constant, intense and prolonged exposure to heat. There’s also no good selling point in showing a customer that, when their house burns down to the ground, at least the granite countertops will survive.
   I should note that life is not all rosy in the realm of quartz and its kind. The lineup in the recent Stone Business overview of quartz providers included plenty of new names, and there’s going to be more competition between them. The business model that’s benefited some natural-quartz producers until now will change, and not necessarily to their advantage.
   We’re in the business of covering all of the dimensional-stone industry. If you’re opposed to some of the people we talk about – well, just consider that we’re offering you valuable enemy intelligence.