Hey you guys seem pretty handy any of you installed your own granite counter tops.Is it hard, any special tools suggestions?
Thx

Assuming you have everything cut and polished before it arrives, all the cabinet guys do is to bed the top in RTV silicone to the cabinet base. If things are not completely level they use drywall screws to get a flat base but there shouldn't be a very big gap since you are still riding on an RTV seat. There may be other tricks but this is what I see.

The cabinets under must be strong enough to bear the weight ( seems obvious! ) and level and stable so that the sealant beds to the granite continuously. Use shims under, not screws above. Point supports can raise stresses in the slab, which eventually may crack it. Local to me here in France, the cost of a granite top translates to;
Cutting pre-polished leaf to length & width.
Polishing cut edges = additional $/metre
Forming radii on edge[s] option = + $/metre
Cutting holes for faucets, hobs, sinks = + $/ metre.

Some points for DIYers.
a] Make sure of your sizes before getting a top cut. It isn't cheap, keep a drawing and give the cutter a copy in case of dispute.
b] Design of kitchen layout can save a lot of money; you can minimise cutouts and non- square edges by choosing non-penetrating hardware. My good wife objected to paying good money to park stuff like toasters, kettle, letter-rack etc. on, so her granite is in her working area. Parking areas are in contrasting wood [ or melamine is possible].
c] Having paid good money, remember it is a natural material and may stain if not cleaned immediately after use. Avoid abrasives like the plague- they scratch, and particularly beware of those green-pad things- often they are charged with particles of silicon carbide!
d] All granites ain't the same! Beware of getting much softer stone like marble.
e] Watch the crafty supplier- A beautiful leaf of best Brazilian Turquoise is often parked right by the showroom door to seduce the wife's eye, so she don't want mundane pink or gray!

Alan

Also take a serious look at concrete countertops.

I was not happy with the screw idea either but my wife assures me that is what they do and she has built about 150 kitchens with granite in her communities.
I will admit the "slam it together" culture thrives in Florida.
What do these customers expect for a lousy $800,000

We use wood shims with our granite tops. Then we use a "latex" caulk that will dry hard and will support the entire top. The screws sound like a stress fracture waiting to happen, but there must be enough caulking preventing the cracks from occurring if Mrs. F has over 150 installed.

The other item to be careful of is the sink cutout. You have to support the top while delivering and setting it so you don't snap the top at the cutout.

Good luck.

I thought about it and putting in screws accurately levelled and true in properly thought-out positions and depths, with gentle placement, enables you to get a countertop at exactly the planned height and keep control the mastic bead thickness too. The type of silicone or mastic may be critical, one with a high modulus and gap filling properties perhaps? My apologies to Mrs F, obviously a thinking person.

You have me curious now. I will try to go watch the whole process. They may add some shims after they get everything level.

I really think granite is for "walk through" kitchens where they really don't do much cooking.

As one who actually uses the kitchen -Granite tops look great but are totally unforgiving with glass and china ware, one tap and the plate / glass is broken. I hate them - designed by people who dont know why they are there, for people who dont use them. Just my 0.02

When all was said and don I installed 16" granite tiles ,looks great 20%the cost of granite slab.I do agree with the breaking of China on the counter though,but as I don,t do the cooking I did what what the wife wanted.

Ann, what do you like for countertops? I'm definitely in the "uses the kitchen" camp.

Congrstulations are in order!

Pics would be nice too, if you have them. I am curious how the 16" slabs look.

I am the kitchen person here and I went with stainless and maple. The "L" between the sink and slick top stove is stainless with a big sliding cutting board and the other 2 counters are maple with poly on it. Very forgiving of dropped stuff and very easy to clean up.

The way I see it done often is to put a substantial bed of plywood down (3/4 -1") and level that, then the stone on top of it. The ply extends over the counters and stabilizes the whole thing. That thickness of ply on a sizable counter may seem expensive until some electrician comes by and break dances on the thing and it cracks.... But that is all after some cool template making with veneer stock strips and a glue gun.

We have some sythetic (rock-hard)tile on the CT's now in our getto phabulous Kit, it too it hard to put things gently on. The wife and I may demo in the near future and she wants butcher block w/ accenting stainless back splash and drawer fronts to match the undercounter fridges. I plan to do the whole thing myself.

You have to be careful not to get the counter too thick or the faucet stems won't be long enough.

In answer to the question posed "what do I like?" My fav surface to work on is a smooth top formica (not heavily dimpled) - these days you can get some pretty impressive styles the only drawback is that you have to be totally anal about sealing any joints and KEEPING them sealed (L-shaped tops etc) otherwise the particle board will expose and will eventually get wet and swell (there is a business opportunity if I ever saw one!). I like stainless - it's forgiving on china etc but I think (personal observation) stainless steel tops and appliances can make the kitchen look commercial and it detracts from the "homely" look if the place looks like a KFC prep area. Ceramic tile is harder on china and glass but not to the same degree as granite and also can be made to look good - the grout always gets stained though and eventually winds up as a dirty ivory color if white or off white was used.

Any opinions on the new quartz composite countertops? I'd heard nothing but great things about it and my wife and I were going to put this in our new kitchen, but if people are complaining that granite and tile are too hard, this stuff could be terrible.

Ann I guess I like the commercial look and it is really easy to clean up. I had the whole "L" shaped counter top fabricated in one piece with welded/polished seams and a backsplash that goes all the way up to the "uppers". If you have something explode on the stove you just wipe it down.
I bought a "work bench top" from Grainger for one of my counters and made up the other counter because it was too long and too narrow to buy as a bench top. The money worked out about the same.

I thought there were no DIY questions allowed

Just no DIY electrical questions. If you are building a nuclear reactor in your basement or doing brain surgery in the garage this is the place to ask your questions. We will give it our best shot ;-)

I have used 16 oz. copper sheet, had the supplier brake the edges to fit the (non dissolving)plywood tops, which are two layers of 3/4" which is very stout. After 10 years it looks absolutely grand, the usage marks only make it look better. You can clean it with half a lemon sprinkled with salt if you want a bright surface, otherwise, just let it darken naturally. After 10 years, Formica looks like 10 year old plastic...The copper is attached with contact cement, just like laminate, you need to be clever using venetian blind slats to position your sheet metal in assembly.

[This message has been edited by Almost Fried (edited 09-27-2006).]

[This message has been edited by Almost Fried (edited 09-27-2006).]

Man i like the sound of that copper sheet but doesn,t it patina bad with water?

You guys must drop alot of stuff as I have black granite in the kitchen and I haven't had a problem with broken dishes. Maybe the paper plates we use are tough

Get'lectric: The patina averages itself over time. If you leave spaghetti sauce or other acid food drops on the surface it will make a bright spot. Normal wiping it down as it is used will develop a beautiful brown color. One of the places I have seen copper counters was an old coffee house, ca 1972, where the counter saw a lot of use, after a year it had patinaed beautifully, just with daily cleaning. One of the counters I made was a custom 2 burner cooktop, assembled on the top of a 24 x 30 inch cabinet base unit. Doub;e thickness plywood, jugsaw cut holes for the burner assemblies, I used a router to relieve the plywood substrate for the flush 5 x 7 x 1/8" alum. plate supporting the controls and pilot lights, then covered it all with copper sheet. 10 years later it still worked fine. And the copper surface looked grand.

Almost Fried and gfretwell, can we get pictures? Sound really cool.

[This message has been edited by Jps1006 (edited 09-29-2006).]

Should you ground the copper countertop?

There a resteraunt around here that has copper CT's and table-tops the look great. They were done in kind of a rustic style - but they are neat. Its copper sheet, with a brake edge, then NAILed to the subsurface with copper nails. Then... they beat it with a hammer - actually a few of them. I can tell that they used at least two different ball-peen's and one or two framing hammers to give it kind of a hand-wought in the turn of the 19th century look. Although they are a bit bumpy the depressions are easy to clean, and the edges are brazed with brass. Real neat looking!

My stainless counter top is bonded to the cook top EGC with a lug (circuit likely to energize). It also picks up the EGC of the receptacles incidentally via the boxes.
That an an awful big chunk of metal to be "floating" in a place with water and electricity everywhere.

This is my kitchen.



We got the cabinets for free so I had to make do with what I had. In an effort not to waste any space I used the blanks between the cabinets at the sink base for a couple pullouts next to the stove and my wrap rack.



I ended up with doors on both sides of that end cabinet. One side is about the same depth as a regular cabinet and the other side is about 5" deep. I store light bulbs in there.