Quote:
Originally Posted by villageuser
Neither. Go Quartzite. That is a natural stone, better than Granite. First, it’s beautiful. Second, I’ve had mine over 3 years. It got the initial sealing when they put it in, and other than the normal wiping it down when something gets dropped on it, I have done nothing else to it, and I’ve been told by the installers, who I double-checked with this year, that I probably wouldn’t have to for more years to come. Quartzite is stain resistant, and will not burn, etch, or scratch. I have both Taj Majal and Vanilla in my house. A little more expensive than the other options, but I have no regrets.
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I lived in the Appalachian mountains of Pennsylvania on a property with quartzite being much more abundant than dirt. I built retaining walls out of quartzite blocks that littered the surface. Essentially, it was once sand that was heated so hot that some of the silica in the sand turned into quartz crystals. It’s soft enough that it can be cut with a circular saw. (Not with my blades, please!) There are places with so much quartzite that it can be mined in big blocks and sliced into slabs. The problem is that it is porous—water and stains will filter into it. What gets sold for counters is treated with oils or waxes that make up about ten percent of the volume.
By contrast, so called “quartz” countertops are made of quartz gravel, marble chips, glass, and industrial waste of various sorts mixed with a polymer binder of some sort and treated with heat. It is then sliced and polished. It has natural material in it, but much of it is made in chemical plants. It can be made in various forms, some of them quite festive, and often it doesn’t look much like stone.
Granite countertops are made of slabs of granite. If you walk through the stone yard of a countertop shop, you will see that there are a lot of really beautiful and exotic possibilities available to those who want their counters to be really striking. Most people choose what is cheapest and most consistent, of course.
One I love that I haven’t seen mentioned here is soapstone. (It doesn’t lather, but it has a sort of soapy, greasy feel to it.) Soapstone is mostly made of steatite, which is mostly talc, mined in big blocks, then sliced. I know there’s a big mine in Virginia. It’s a medium to dark grey. I had a two ton Tulikivi wood stove made of it, and it held the heat of the fire for hours, gradually heating the house. It’s also good for handmade farmhouse-type sinks.
I’m pleased that my home on The Villages has nice Formica countertops. Easy to clean. Much less expensive. Looks nice to me. Stone? Who am I trying to impress?