Cut onsite granite worktops Many companies in recent years have started advertising a one day service where they come and manufacture your worktops onsite. This is probably the worst way you can manufacture a granite worktop and you should be aware of any company making such claims. A quality granite worktop needs to first be accurately templated by an experience stone mason. These templates then need to be used to manufacture the granite worktops in a dedicated factory using laser saws and CNC machinery. As a granite worktop is not an off the shelf product rather it is bespoke to your kitchen. I often give my clients the example of a window company, you would not expect your window installer to cut and manufacture your windows onsite. Therefore how can you expect quality granite worktops to be manufactured in your house?
The main issue with cut onsite granite worktops are the company you will be using will turn up to your house with pre-cut lengths or blanks. These pre-cut lengths are essentially the off cuts of the blocks in the quarry, which are produced from small or rejected blocks. They will then try and mix and match these off cuts in your kitchen, which are more than likely to come from different blocks. This will result in colour variations, joints in unwanted places and variations in thickness. Quality granite worktops need to be cut from large premium grade slabs, which are normally 3 meters by 2 meters. However cut onsite companies will not be able to use large slabs as they are too big and heavy to manufacture onsite.
They will then use angle grinders to cut your granite worktops to size. No matter how skilled you are with an angle grinder you will never be able to achieve a millimetre perfect cut as you would with an automatic laser saw. Once your worktops have been cut they will then be polished using hand held polishers, which will never give the glass type of finishing of an edge polishing machine. Also they will polish the worktops using dry polishing pads. These polishing pads will never give you the finish of wet polishing pads. The reason why cut onsite companies cannot offer wet polishing is due to the amount of water that is involved in wet polishing would basically flood your kitchen. Our factory has a special resin floor with guttering and a water recycling system, because of the amount of water that is involved in cutting and polishing a granite worktop. In order to conceal the poorly polished edges they will often use wax this wax will normally last the duration of six to nine months thereafter revealing the poorly polished edges.
Finally your sink cutout and drainer grooves will be cut again using hand held grinders and polishers. This will result in a sink cutout that is not cut millimetre perfect to the sink and nine times out of ten is bowed. The drainer grooves will be cut and polished by hand and are likely not to be sloped, so the water will not drain into the sink. Your sink cutout and drainer grooves should be cut and manufactured in a factory on CNC machinery, which ensures millimetre perfect accuracy.
In summary my advice to you is if the price sounds too good to be true, it more than likely is. You have to be very careful when choosing a granite worktop supplier and ensure you stay away from any company offering a one day or cut on site service. On average we replace about three poor quality granite worktops per week that have been fitted by cut onsite companies. Therefore these clients are in fact paying twice for their granite worktops.