There is a lot of propaganda going back and forth between the granite fabricating community and pretty much all other countertop products. Here are the facts:
Granite, for the most part, comes from India, China and Brazil. It is mined by men, women and children who generally earn around .25 – .35 cents per hour. In India, a portion of the labor force used to mine granite are indentured servants. If you do not know what an indentured servant is, google it. You will freak. In China, a large portion of folks who mine granite are political prisoners and criminals that are “ loaned out “ to companies by the Chinese government for dirt cheap wages. In Brazil, the quest for granite is one of the large contributors to the destruction of the Brazilian rainforest (after raising of cattle and cutting of lumber ). They dump the raw sewage from the cutting of granite right back in the Amazon or the tributaries that feed it. In short, when you think of the way granite is mined and the folks who mine it, think of American manufacturing circa 1890. Low wages, high mortality / injury rates, non – existent environmental regulations and yes, indentured servitude (you have to go back to the Pilgrims for that kind of stuff).
Once the granite is mined and cut into slabs, it is loaded into cargo containers and sent to the U.S. It is then sent to regional distributors who will then send it to local distributors. Your fabricator will then purchase the slab and turn it into a countertop for your home.
Fast Fact: Much of the granite mined and shipped to the U.S. is deemed “unsafe “ for Chinese housing. The Chinese have never come out and said exactly what it is that they deem “unsafe.” Considering the low price the Chinese tend to put on life, this alone would steer me clear of granite. Granite has a very high waste factor due to the size of the slabs. Fabricators average 15%-25% waste per slab.
Then we get into the weight of granite. Most granite being installed is 3 c.m. Granite due to it’s “massive look. This material averages 16 pounds per S.F. and will require 3–4 men per install due to the weight of the countertops.
Fast Fact: Granite that comes “pre–sealed” is most likely also dyed to make the slab colors appear more uniform. Within a few months around your sink and the front edge of the counter you tend to lean on, the granite will be a a few shades different color. Learn to live with it as there is nothing you can do to fix this. Granite must be “sealed” to prevent stains on a regular basis. The sealers available at the home centers are generally water – based and pretty weak. Get used to doing this monthly on your bathroom countertops. The dyes in soap, candles and makeup make the stuff that gets on a kitchen countertop look easy to clean. Integral sinks are not available in granite. You will either choose a drop–in or undermounted sink.
Fast Fact: Every sink you see as “included with the bathroom counter” from a fabricator is a cheap piece of vitreous China that is made in China and bought by the pallet. They average $10.00-$15.00 per sink. If you chip the sink, which is very, very easy, good luck finding a repair for under $100.00. The sinks are permanently bonded to the bottom of the granite if you get an undermount sink. They are never, ever coming off. Granite will come in a high gloss finish that you will come to despise over the years. It shows every streak, smear and drop of water. Just leaving water, especially if you have hard water, on a granite countertop will eventually cause discoloration if you do not anal – retentively keep up with sealing and resealing the counterop. Granite is very hard and very hard to scratch. If it does happen to get scratched ( tile installers are the worst culprits for scratching granite countertops ), learn to live with it, there is no repair. If you do get a stain on a granite countertop, learn to live with it, it is not repairable. If your granite begins to have small bits of the surface popping out, learn to live with it. The only way to “ fix “ this is to fill it with an epoxy that is pretty noticable.
Fast Fact: Of all the products we have mentioned in this section, granite is the second cheapest (natural marble / terrazzo being the cheapest). The material cost is lower than even plastic laminate. How can this be? When you are buying a product that is usually subsidized by the government (India, China or Brazil), mined by poor folks for super low wages, has no real environmental regulations and has little or no quality control (it is a hunk of rock), you can sell the stuff dirt cheap, even if it comes from overseas. So, why do some builders use it for bathroom countertops? Because the perceived value to many potential home buyers is high. This is a carry – over from the 1980’s and 1990’s when the cost of granite was high.The folks that tend to continue to perpetuate the “ granite is a high end product that you must have for a home are real estate agents. In general, real estate agents have no idea how different countertop products perform. What they do know is the public still thinks granite is a high end product and thus the characterize it as such. Granite was mostly a local product at the time that was shipped in small quantities to the U.S. for homes and commercial jobs that were very high end. This was before the Chinese dropped the bottom out of the market in 1999–2000 by flooding it with their government subsidized material that was sold at less than cost (seriously). At that point, the Brazilians and the Indians had no choice but to also drop their prices and have the governments help subsidize the industry.
Fast Fact: Granite is the only countertop product that is less expensive today than it was twenty years ago. This is due to lower cost of material from China, India and Brazil and the explosion of small granite fabricators in the last ten years. When I started in this industry in 1991, there were perhaps four of five granite fabricators in the OKC metro area. Once the cost of the material was nearly cut in half, many folks who worked for the shops went out and started their own small shops. Then folks who worked for those shops went out and started their own shops. We now have in the neighborhood of 30 granite fabrication shops of various size, skill and capital in the area. The only thing they all tend to have in common is price. When each opens a new shop, they tend to sell on price and price alone. Many of the shops are so under capitalized that messing up one or two jobs in a month will put them under and put you out of luck. We have had three shops open up in a five block radius of our factory in the last two years. Two of the three have gone under.
In the big scheme of things, Granite is a better product for a bathroom countertop than natural marble and concrete. It is inferior to solid surface, quartz surfacing, properly installed plastic laminate, glass and stainless steel. The other product lines are too new for a really accurate comparison. If you are considering granite, just consider where it comes from, who mines it and if the company you are thinking of using has enough capital to stand behind the job if something goes wrong. From a homeowner’s perspective, the high gloss finish of granite will be enough to make a person have granite countertops once and never again. A real P.I.T.A. to keep clean in a master bath, much less a guest bath or kid’s bath.
