Quart & Marble Countertops
Quartz countertops check both boxes for durability and beauty as they combine both the robustness and attractiveness of natural minerals with the quality benefits that modern engineering and technology bring. Quartz countertops are made out of thoroughly processed and engineered mineral, giving your kitchen surface the properties that natural stones simply don’t have.
This in many ways, gives you the best of both worlds. Quartz is one of the most abundant minerals present on the planet. While it is not a stone per se, it is one of the many ingredients that form a stone: granite, for instance, is made up of several minerals, including quartz (primarily) and feldspar. When opting for custom quartz countertops, you are not getting a solid quartz surface, but rather, one that is made out of a combination of mineral and other additives.
Custom countertops are usually about 93 percent quartz and 7 percent other minerals and materials like resin binder and additives that create unique colors in stones. Quartz is a human-made product that maximizes what nature offers. While they are not quarried directly out of the earth and cut into countertop-shaped slabs like other natural stones such as granite, they offer many unique properties that make them just as good for these kinds of applications, if not even better.
Quartz is also an extremely hard material that is second only to diamond in terms of strength and hardness rating. countertops are made by binding together quartz minerals using a resin, which is then baked under certain degrees of heat and pressure. The resin binder makes the entire recipe non-porous, effectively filling in all cracks, gaps, and crevices between the mineral crystals. The result is an extremely hard, durable, pore-less, and not to mention handsome work surface, that looks good with any type of interior. Custom quartz countertops are not hard to find.
Being made out of one of the earth’s most abundant and accessible minerals, countertops are also widely available in premier stores and through online home remodeling contractors & suppliers. If you wonder whether granite or quartz is cheaper, the answer is as variable as the types of quartz and stone countertops that you can choose from in the market.
Price and quality usually depend on the type of stone or mineral you choose as well as the size of countertop surface you need. The key is finding the best combination of quality, value, and aesthetics for your application.
