Cut The Dust and Customer Fuss, Part I

Make a mess in their house, however, and you can turn the most-serene among them into a rampaging dragon. Even if their countertops are the best you’ve ever done, the entire experience will be soured for them by the fact that you dirtied their project or living space.
People lead busy-enough lives without having to clean up after contractors, and some are bold enough to let you know. I once had an otherwise perfectly rational client tell me he’d make sure I got fired if I got any dust on his plasma TV. Needless to say, I was careful.
The mark of a good installion is one that leaves a place at least as clean, if not cleaner, than on arrival. An installion crew can’t accomplish this alone, however; to give your customers a start-to-finish good experience, your salespeople, templaters, fabricators, and installers are going to have to work together to help the jobsite stay clean.
Most stone companies I’ve worked with take the approach that anything with the potential to create a mess should be done in the shop. They try to drill all holes, cut out all cooktops and outlets, and cut as much backsplash to length as they can before the pieces are on the truck. Allowing for real-world flexibility, this approach works great.
The key component is to have all the necessary information. You can’t drill a hole or cut an opening if you don’t know the size or location. The job of gathering this information should fall to the salesperson or expeditor. The templater should then verify the information and try to fill in the blanks.
This isn’t as easy as it sounds. On some jobs, the templates will be made before the client even picks out a faucet. Or, there will be a number of faucet accessories (sprayers, soap dispensers, filtered water spouts) and the client has a tough time visualizing the best placement for them. Or, maybe a faucet placement is going to be in a tight spot and nobody’s sure it’s going to work.
All of these instances could lead to an installer drilling a hole or holes on the job site.  And, there’s also the forgotten hole for the air gap for the dishwasher, the instant hot water added at the last minute, or clients just changing their minds on the faucet style.
Cooktop information can be just as difficult. Anyone who has cut an opening off a manufacturer’s spec sheet knows the measurements often don’t take into account the thickness of the screws on the sides of the cooktop body. Grinding away slots for the screw heads has the potential to be messy; measuring your cutout opening off the actual unit is best, but not always possible.
Combining a cooktop with a downdraft from a different manufacturer can also lead to some on-site adaptation. The strength of the material or the difficulty of installation also may prevent a cook top from being completely cut out in the shop, meaning more on-site work. 
Outlets and backsplash can be trying as well. Backsplash pieces often aren’t strong enough to have an outlet cut out in the shop and still travel to the jobsite in one piece. There’s also the risk that shimming a countertop run will throw off the measurements on a pre-cut outlet opening. This can be costly if you have to replace a piece of full-height backsplash in an expensive stone.
Sending out cut-to-length splash pieces is usually overly optimistic. Back splashes can often be measured to their exact length, but side splashes, angle-cut splashes, and full-height pieces will most likely need to be sent out big and adapted to fit by the installers.
All of these examples make clear that cutting and drilling on-site is the reality of the world. How your installers handle themselves when they are doing this can make the difference between a happy or seething client.
Dust is the real issue. Whatever we do, we granite guys tend to make a lot of it. Having a client walk in on an install, where a big cloud of dust is rising, is an experience they won’t soon forget. It can be costly as well.
One company I worked for was back-charged to get bikes professionally cleaned because their installers decided to cut some backsplash in a garage on a cold day. Another was charged for a cleaning service after the installers did a sloppy job cleaning up after themselves when they cut out a cook top. The less potential there is for making dust, the better.
Fabricators can be a big part of the solution to this. The more stone they can safely remove in the shop, the less problem it is on site. If the countertop is too fragile to cut out the whole cook top, have them at least cut out the corners. It’s much easier to contain the dust on a straight cut than it is to contain the mess of cleaning out a cooktop corner on an installed countertop.
Better yet, have the fabricators cut halfway through the stone on the rest of the cut out. This should retain the strength necessary to safely install the piece, while removing half the mess at the same time.
If cutting out an entire faucet hole weakens a piece too much, the same process can be used. One company I work with drills their holes more than three-quarters of the way through from the bottom and then – after the piece is installed – taps from the top with a hammer to break out the core. This method is quick and clean; just make sure you know where to tap first.
Once the installer determines what needs to be done on-site, the right tools can make the job a relatively clean one. A powerful wet/dry vacuum is a must for every installer. The more-powerful the better, in my opinion, even if they do get a little bulky at times.
Buy plenty of fresh vacuum filters and use them. Fine stone dust, especially when wet, reduces the power of a vacuum quickly, and can allow dust from a cut to distribute through a room.
Before you bring a vacuum into a house, plug it in and turn it on outside. The bumpy ride in the truck can shake free a lot of dust on the filter, which will blow out the first time you turn on the vacuum. Letting go a burst of dust inside someone’s house looks terrible and tends to upset them.
To cut out a cook-top cleanly, the vacuum and a damp sponge (or spray bottle) against the blade are all you really need. If you’re working alone, a vacuum attachment on the blade guard also works well.
The right amount of water is the key. Use too little, and it won’t knock down the dust effectively. Use too much, and the excess runs all over and creates a mess of its own. A damp blade can spray a slurry line as well, so look around the area where you plan to work. If there is tile, wallpaper or a cabinet panel you’d like to keep clean, tape or paper over them.
If your cooktop opening sits over drawers, pull them out and tape over the slides. Granite dust is abrasive and can easily ruin the ball bearings in high-end drawer slides – and these are expensive to replace. A cabinet without drawers is easier to clean out as well. 
Once the cook-top is cut out and cleaned up, the worst of the mess-making should be over. Next month I’ll cover cleanly cutting the backsplash, drilling holes, and doing a final clean that would even impress your mom. 
Jason Nottestad, a 12-year stone industry veteran, is co-owner of Wisconsin-based Midwest Template Services.