One Or The Other

My answer at the time is, of course, whatever product I’m putting in their house. I can rattle off about a half-dozen things that I consider an advantage, and that seems to satisfy them.
If they get more specific and ask me which product I like installing better, I have to sigh and tell them the truth. Quartz surfaces run circles around granite when it comes to ease of installation – and this from an old granite guy who disdainfully called the quartz stuff “plastic” when it was first introduced.
While granite does have one property that makes it easier to work with than engineered stone, the manmade stuff – in general – is more-installer-friendly.
The first big advantage engineered stone has over granite, and the most cost-saving, is that it rarely breaks during transportation and installation. In my three years of working with quartz, I have yet to break a single countertop, and ended breaking only one piece of backsplash. I even had an island (with a cooktop opening cut out of it) slip from my hands and fall edge-down on the floor without breaking. With almost any granite, the island would have been in ten pieces.
The flexural strength of engineered stone (Silestone® claims four times that of granite), combined with the bonding resin strength and density of material achieved in manufacturing, makes it a pretty tough material to break. If you want to prove it to yourself, just take a long leftover stick of backsplash and bend it until it breaks.
The second big advantage quartz has is that it’s generally lighter than granite. Most engineered-stone manufacturers tell me the 3cm quartz is in the range of 18 lbs./ ft(2), whereas it’s seldom I’ve heard granite mentioned at anything less than 20 lbs. (and usually more.) Even with a conservative estimate, that puts a 4’ X 8’ island of quartz at anywhere between 60-150 lbs. less than granite.
That kind of weight difference is no laughing matter when one is moving this stuff around on a daily basis. For some installations, it can mean the difference between bringing along two guys or three, which can really add up on your bottom line. If you are trying to move a large L piece or place a long sink run on top of a cabinet, a few pounds on the lighter side can really make a difference.
The weight of engineered stone is more-consistent as well, which helps when you’re preparing to lift a piece. An experienced guy can eye up a piece of quartz and pretty well know what he is in for. With granite, the weight difference between Santa Cecilia and Black Galaxy can be downright surprising, and tough on the back if you weren’t expecting a piece to weigh that much.
The third big advantage that some engineered stone has is the color matching with adhesives and caulks. These are a godsend for a guy who is never quite satisfied with the color of a seam. I’ve tried the pre-mixed colorants that are supposed to provide good seam colors for granite; in reality, granite color, even from block to block, changes.
While the subtle differences in granite add to the beauty of the product, it makes mixing colors for seams a bit of a challenge. The first time I grabbed a color-matched adhesive for engineered stone and applied it to a seam with a quartz surface, I got great results. I was sold.
This being said, I admit that some of the engineered-stone adhesive colors are better than others. I don’t use them all, and with some of the colors I just have to scratch my head and wonder who imagined that the particular adhesive color would go with the stone. But for the best sellers, the majority of my jobs, the engineered stone companies have the colors spot-on.
This also gives me confidence in letting a less-experienced guy work on a seam. As long as he can level the pieces, get them in plane, and put in the right amount of hardener, a newer guy can generally get good results. Let a new guy put in a poorly colored seam with granite, and it will really stick out.
The fourth big advantage that engineered stone has is the ease of drilling holes on site. They can be drilled dry without heating up the stone or ruining the drill bit. This is not something I’d advise with granite; just ask anyone who heats up a core hole to the point that it cracks into the sink cutout. I’ve done it on more than one occasion – even, inexplicably, twice on one job.
I’m not a big fan of the dry drill. At the very least, I like to run the bit for a while and then dip it in water to allow some cooling. But for most of the holes I drill in engineered stone, it’s not necessary. This can save a lot of cleanup time as well.
The fifth big advantage that engineered stone has over granite is the consistency of material in the product. This means fewer surprises in store for the guys handling the finished pieces.
I love what the new coating technologies have done for the surfaces of granite, but those same coatings can also hide flaws that jump out at you and ruin your day. Several times I’ve cut splash to length, or cut outlets, only to have a chunk of stone fall right off.
I’ve also had pieces break at what were clearly hidden natural fissures. Not that engineered stone is perfect: I’ve seen cracks appear in the bottom of pieces but not in the top. While these are unnerving, I’ve never had one quartz piece break yet.
The sixth big advantage engineered stone has is the availability of unbacked 1cm slabs for shower surrounds and full-height backsplash. Not every company offers 1cm, and it’s not available in every color, but once you’ve used it you won’t want to go back. Even a smaller guy like myself can easily move around a shower panel, and that’s not something I’d even attempt with 2cm granite.
The one aspect of engineered stone that I’m putting in the neutral column is the fact that is has “give” with a certain amount of flexing. This makes doing seams easier and is part of the reason it’s so hard to break, so I may seem to be contradicting myself. But my point here is that because engineered stone has give, you have to pay very close attention to how it is sitting on the cabinets as you go along.
While granite does flex, you’ll usually see a high spot because your countertop piece will be sticking up all over the place. This is certainly scary, and is one reason that granite pieces break.
But, with engineered stone, the give allows it to conform much more to the ups and downs of the cabinet tops. You have to pay close attention to the plane of the countertops as you set them, because what might appear to be level and plane is actually only the countertops sagging with the cabinets.
This is only going to be visible once you put your backsplash pieces on and end up with gaps in back corners or where the pieces meet. It’s also possible to have engineered stone sag behind a cooktop or sink cutout, resulting in a rather ugly gap.
The one installation area that granite proves superior, in my opinion, is the ease of on-site polishing. Wet is the key with engineered stone; it’s easy enough to do outside in a warm climate. But where we have winter, keeping a stone wet while polishing can be tough.
With granite, meanwhile, I can generally get away with dry-polishing all the way up to an 800 pad, and after that the stone just needs to be dampened.
Engineered stone is very easy to burn and discolor as well, and once you’ve torched it you have to grind away that area and start over in order to get a polish. This can be especially frustrating if you’re trying to match a machine-polished edge detail.
With all the installation advantages of engineered stone, does that mean I’d like to install it exclusively in favor of granite? The answer is no. Granite, with all its difficulties, is still an overwhelmingly more-beautiful product than engineered stone.
Sure granite is tough to fabricate and install. If you work with engineered stone and are considering adding granite, read those words twice and take them to heart. But if we wanted easy, we’d all install laminate.
Instead, we read Thomas Pynchon, make good Pinot Noir, and install granite. All difficult, but worth the effort.
Jason Nottestad, a 12-year stone industry veteran, is co-owner of Wisconsin-based Midwest Template Services (www.countertopsbymts.com).