4 Questions Buyers Forget When Buying Natural Stone Countertops
Posted by Sasi Duggirala on Mon, Nov 01, 2010 @ 12:35 PM
So, you want to purchase granite countertops for your kitchen but you don't know how to go about the process. Depending on the market, there is a huge selection of fabricators to choose from. The key for the consumer is to identify their specific needs and see which fabricator might pair up with them the best; there have to be questions asked to determine how each fabricator differs from the others being considered. Besides the normal questions about price, service, and quality, the following 4 tips will help in deciding if the fabricator you are considering is the right one for you:
1. Does the fabricator use any subs for the work to be performed in your home? Oftentimes, the larger fabrication and installation companies will have a team of different people coming to your home on each visit. You might have one crew do the templates or measuring, one crew for doing the tearout of the old counters, and then finally a 3rd crew to do the installation. Unfortunately, there can be a lot lost in communication between these sets of people and one detail missed could ruin the job. Having consistency within the company's workforce leads to better quality work typically because the mistakes that might be made limited.
2. Does the fabricator provide references for their work? And I don't mean 4 or 5 homeowners...That isn't really a good sample size of people to determine whether or not the fabricator is qualified to work in your home. Any company will have 4 or 5 references where the job went perfectly; the potential fabricator should give you a list of at least 10. More important than quantity of references is the type of references. Are all of them homeowners or does the fabricator have designers. contractors, cabinet makers, kitchen and bath dealers, etc. on his referral list? The more varied the reference sources are, the more confident you should feel about hiring the fabricator. These types of referral sources will have worked with the fabricator on mulitple jobs and will provide a much better review of the fabricator's work.
3. Does the fabricator have a showroom where you can see their work? There are a lot of "fabricators" out there that work out of a truck only. They don't even have a physical location that you can go to...just a number to call on the side of the truck and that's it. God forbid that there might be a problem with the fabrication or installation; how would you get them to come back if you discover an issue a week after install and final payment has already been made? It is important to look for fabricators that have a showroom; this legitimizes them in the eyes of a customer. Also, you get to see in person the quality of their work: do they have samples of the seams that they might be putting in your kitchen? how nice of a polish do they do on the edges? are their sink cutouts done properly? how do they mount their sinks to the counters? All of these questions would be answered if the fabricator has a legitimate showroom.
4. Does the fabricator have a familiarity of working with the stone that you are considering? This is a commonly overlooked aspect of the decision making process when hiring a fabricator. There are hundreds of stones on the marketplace between granite, marble, travertine, limestone, soapstone, onyx, etc. that the consumer needs to make sure that the fabricator has experience working with the various types. Not all stones are created equal in how to work them; they vary tremendously in their geology. Taking it a step further, not all granites are created equally. Even though a particular color might be classified as a "granite" it might not fabricate like a typical granite would. Your fabricator must have superior skills especially when working with such granites as Sedna or Golden Beach or marbles such as Calacatta Gold or White Carrara just to name a few.
Obviously there are many other factors to consider when choosing a fabricator, but I think the information above is sometimes overlooked in the marketplace and definitely would help in a consumer's making an educated decision.
Thanks for your time!
