What should one expect for counter top seams of synthetic stone (i.e. Silestone). I assume granite, solid surface, etc. are similar.
Should the seam be flush? … If I closed my eyes and ran my fingers across would I be hard pressed to feel it?
Is there a ‘standard’ in the industry? At what point might I reject the seam as not acceptable?
If my counter has a corner w/ a sink near by … what’s the best location for the seam? Diagonal in the corner or near the sink. Is there a rule of thumb on where and why? I had a guy said the best is the diagonal to the corner as being the least noticeable.
I know you guys have some solid experience here … what should I expect for quality in these two areas?
Mark Williams, HR, OR
Replies
Having seen many stone counter top installations I would strongly advise you to see a previous project your installer has done. I have seen nearly seamless installs and ones that were horrible. One particular horrible one did make it to court and a GC lost his butt cause he hired the installer. Just my 2 cents.
Ditto JoeyJoey. Check out previous jobs.
The seams should be barely detectable, by hand or eye. I've seen ones almost impossible to detect, to barely possible to not notice, but a good one is inconspicous.
I'd break the counter at the sink. It's easier to get two short joints tight than a long miter. If it was laminate you wouldn't have the option of joining at the sink. With solid surface you do, so why not take advantage of it. Long diagonals are harder, but if he thinks he can do it, let him.
If the fabricators have a sharp blade on their saw, and the seam is cut in the shop, the joint should be no more than 1/16" wide. Depending on the type of material there may be a little chipout but there shouldn't be much.
I've sent back one top that had a seam at least 1/8" wide with lots of tearout. Installers said it was the best they could do. Replacement, from a different company, was nearly invisible.
Thanks everyone for the feedback.
Position of the seam - sounds like different valid options ... mostly NOT on the diagonal ... which is what a professional tile setter had told me. Sounded like he was quite familiar w/ counters.
Seam - May be visually noticeable ... depends on the pattern/texture, I'm sure of. Should be effectively flush ... the glass or matchbook test seem OK. Mine would pass neither ... the matchbook would easily catch every time. Put a straightedge on it and you could see light under half.
I rejected it ... even though the fabricator felt it was OK ... although he had not seen the job himself, so I don't know how he could declare any part of the install as 'done in a workmanlike manner to industry standards'.
Thanks all for your time/point of view. I really appreciate it!
They don't do diagonals in the corners.
I'd pretty much ditto what others said.
Why don't you take it on yourself to be proactive and invstigate what you might expect and do a little demanding at the same time. (within reason)
i want it to look like this one in your showroom...........................
[email protected]
I had a real nice job done last year where they bookmatched a pretty granite across a mitered corner.
Maybe you mean they don't do diagonals with Silestone? I can see that. Never worked with the stuff yet.
I've seen a few hundred stone tops and now many synthetic stone like Silestone.
I've never seen one done on the diagonal though.
Perhaps it is a regional thing.[email protected]
Yeah, I can't say they're common, but I have seen a few.
"synthetic stone" slabs tend to be very consistent, predictable and flat so I would say zero lippage and the gap between slabs should be no wider than the thickness of a razor blade.
I concur with the other suggestions that you inspect other jobs done by the fabricator.
A good policy is to ask for the contact info for the three most recent clients. If they are happy, chances are you will be.
Karl
You shouldn't expect lippage with the seam but you will be able to feel it slightly when you run your hand across it. If you go to tight at the seam, the seam fill will fail prematurely, I put ours at just under a 1/16" but no more.
I've never seen a diagnol seam and as an installer I wouldn't want to do it. Despite what was said previously Silestone may have some thickness variation if all pieces were not cut from the same slab. So shimming here and there may be necessary to get the seam right. A lot will also depend on the cabinet installation, are they level in all directions. A little variation will cause a problem and the product has just enough flex in it that it will "bend" across a long run.
I'm not a fan of seaming at the sink myself but that's my personal preference.
We use high quality silicone and color it for our seams. I have our on staff painter do them and in about 10 minutes he can have it invisable from about 3 ft away, stand right on it and you can make it out.
I would not allow HD to install your c-tops for you I would call a local fabricator and ask if they do their own installs, if not ask for their top 2 contractors.
Do you have a lay out of your kitchen?
You may also want to look at Cambria stone if you have local access, the cost for me here runs about the same as Silestone Cat. C colors and IMO they look better.
When I bought my Silestone countertop I asked about diagonal seams. They'll do them, but the customer pays for the entire slab used before cutting, so in effect you're on the hook for another 4 square feet or so if you seam in a corner diagonally. This was a no-brainer for me at $62/foot.
They seamed in the center of the cooktop, and at the ends of the segment containing the sink -- about 3 feet on either side. All seams so far are OK. They used a color-matched-on-site epoxy product (Aichem?) and the seams are nearly invisible, and dead smooth -- I can't feel any of them, and my wife couldn't find one of them.
I had a real problem with the way they laid and cut the templates, and sure enough the last piece of stone didn't fit worth a crap. The salesman whined a lot about the cost of a replacement piece of stone coming out of his pocket, but he can't say I didn't warn him. As a lowly consumer, what could I know about fitting a stone countertop to a wavy wall and an out-of-plane cabinet top? It turned out to be quite a lot.
Moral: watch your installer like a hawk, and as someone else mentioned, don't let them get away with anything less than what the showroom countertops look like.
I do most of the installations for our company though I'm trying to get away from it as a few field employees are getting the hang of it.
We were using an epoxy seam fill for our jobs for a while and eventually the fabricator who supplies us with our tops told us they had enough problems that they were switching to silicone, so that's we use now. I often wonder how long they will last but so far (5 years) so good.
we make our own templates, if there's a problem it would be my fault and we would take care of it. So far haven't had one not work but there have been times we had to make minor field adjustments to compensate for a wavy wall etc.
As for the showroom comment, we do not have one, we do set up a display at the yearly homeshow and while we make the seams look very good for the show, we do not try to make them perfect ;). On the job is a different story...
This outfit had a template guy and an install team. The template guy laid out all the templates over the full countertop space (4 sides ending in a peninsula separating the kitchen area from the dining area). Then he jiggered them around so everything fit right and glued them all together, and finally cut them at seam points for carrying them to the shop.
So far, so good. But when the installers came, they installed from the far kitchen end, and epoxied the slabs together as they went around, without doing a final "jiggering" of all the slabs together as had been done with the templates. Errors thus accumulated, and the result was a misalignment of about 3/8" between the final peninsula piece and the adjoining countertop, and a 1/2" gap between the end of the peninsula and the dining area wall. With no backsplash planned for the dining area, there wasn't much they could do to hide the problem, but they gave it their best shot. No obvious attempt was made to determine, and accomodate, the non-level, non-plane cabinet-top surface.
They're trying again Thursday, with a new piece of stone based on the old template and installers' notes made on the template. We'll see.
Good luck, My experience is notes on a template do not always translate into reality.
The lack of a backsplash will make the installation quite a bit more difficult and the accuracy of the templates even more critical.
It's not that installing them is any more difficult perse, the amount of time spent on the templates to ensure they are accurate would increase quite a bit and the guy doing the grinding in the shop better know so he can spend a little more time on scribing, even then there is a possibly of having to adjust the backside on site.
Not having a level playing surface from the begining is going to your biggest hurrdle.
Yeah, I was astounded. AFAIK, they didn't even have a level with them. Also, they made no attempt, either on the templates or the slabs, to conform to the wall. That wasn't so bad in the kitchen area, since there will be a backsplash there, but it contributed to the accumulated error that eventually did them in. I'll let you know how they do on Thursday.
Take an empty glass tumbler (drinking glass) and free slide it across the seam in both directions.
If you don't hear anything, that's perfect. If it just makes a tik sound, that's acceptable. It it trips and falls over, that's not acceptable.
An old tilesetter taught me that.
SamT
I may be bucking the popular thought here, but the uniformity of the man-made materials makes it much harder to hide a seam, not easier. The uniformity highlights the seam, especially in the lighter colors.
Use a white Zodiak as is popular in resturants and it's a nightmare to hide the seam from a demanding client.
One thing's for sure, the seam won't be any better than the last seam they've done. That's one of those rules of thumb that's more universal fact. Okay, it's possible to have a contractor lax up on his standards for commercial work and consistantly turn out good residential results, but rare is the bird who does average work unless you ask for more.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
I disagree.
See samt's post above.
Hide as in visual, or as in relativity to the adjoining slab.............
The seam is there. We gaurantee that you will see it, and possibly notice it beyond it's visual appearance. If it is not, we will refund your money.[email protected]
I don't buy the sliding glass trick. If the seem looks good, feels good to the touch, what difference does it make if the seam is super flat? Besides most installers are using equipment that makes getting it flat the easy part.
Along the same lines we've had dead flat seams that were simply too wide so we asked to have them pulled and the seam re-epoxied.
Beer was created so carpenters wouldn't rule the world.
Eric
Let me get this right ... you guarantee it will be less than perfect, but if you happened to get it right (i.e. very good), I get it for free?? Did I miss something?
Let me get this right ... you guarantee it will be less than perfect, but if you happened to get it right (i.e. very good), I get it for free?? Did I miss something?
The seam is there. We gaurantee that you will see it, and possibly notice it beyond it's visual appearance. If it is not, we will refund your money.
I never said less than perfect. The seam is there, why pretend it is not, or suggest that it will be (almost) invisible?
Anyone who can see could see the seam. It's right there. There are two (or more) separate peices of material that have been joined together. There IS a seam. You can feel it and see it.
Define perfect as it relates to seaming countertops of various solid man made and natural materials.
Do you gaurantee perfection for the (all) work you produce?
I'd rather tell people the truth, be honest and forthright, than build up expectations that may not be deliverable under any circumstances.
We strive to provide a good product. However, we cannot make seams in solid material countertops vanish, so we would never suggest that they will be indiscernable to the human eye, nor anything close to that.
Go back and read Sam T's post.
Regards,
Eric[email protected]
Most of the counters I see going in are granite. A trained eye can find the seam anytime.
As far as solid surface goes, "inconspicous", is acceptable. Invisible is possible with a few colors. Some colors are hard as hell to hide the seam. Back when I was doing corian, Cameo white, and Bone were the easies colors to seam. Dawn Beige was the hardest. Something the way the pattern in it that made it look like marble.
Edited 8/6/2007 9:37 pm ET by sawzall
It is interesting to hear from folks in different areas of the country as to how they handle this issue.
I am in the camp of those who seam in the middle of the sink and cooktops where necessary and able to. I have never seen a diagonal seam in a hard solid surface material and one of the posters made sense that it eats up a few more sq. ft. I always specify solor match silicone on our jobs for seams.
I did not hear anyone mention computer templating. We have probably 50 stone fabricators in the area, but only 3 who template using a computer and high rez camera. It's really a slick system and the tolerance is on the order of +/- 1/32".
We only use these companies to do our tops because the accuracy is unbeatable. Scribing to a wall with any amount of waviness is not an issue, and the seams and overhangs are as close to perfect as possible.
sully