Quartz Countertop - Myths and More

Quartz countertop is almost indestructable, many manufacturers tend to sell us this myth. Truth is that quartz countertops do react to some chemical agents, although they do withstand many types of chemical and physical stress.
Quartz countertop fabricators will have on hand a leaflet from the quartz slab manufacturer, most of them have a page dedicated to what may or may not damage your countertop. Their labs and day to day experience have helped them elaborate a list.

What they may say about scratch resistance and abrasion,gloss, fire and heat ...
Without a doubt quartz surfaces are very hard. If you have a countertops fabrication unit, you'll notice that it grinds your diamond tools pretty quick.
Quartz surfaces contrary to what manufacturers say does:

•  Scratch - I had a claim, on a dark blue engineered quartz, they had a glass bottle with a rough bottom, and with some friction it did leave marks on the quartz countertop
• Warp - I've see long slabs warp, due to warehousing or heat. In truth I've seen a genius in stone vanities do a rounded support for the quartz vanity with localised heat.
• Crack - they say it doesn't crack, I had once a claim from a countertop fabricator, while fabricating the countertop some would break when doing the sink cut out ... I figure it had excess tension on that point, and he didn't respect the cut out procedure (namely drilling wholes in the four corners of the cut out)
• Stain resistant - there is the good part, I had once a quartz manufacturer who for some reason started identifying slab defects with a Eding 3000 type permanent marker .... guess what, it stained, it actually was absorbed by the slab. Sodium hydroxide can also stain you countertop ... At the laboratories they test a limited range of products, and we all know that the detergent companies are constantly creating new more powerful and effective products, so be careful.
• Resist to Heat  - some manufacturers say their product "can tolerate brief exposures to moderately hot temperatures without warping, staining, discoloring or cracking." I say, heat in direct contact with quartz may damage it permanently, so be very careful, don't ever risk putting a hot pot or pan on your quartz countertop.
• Resist Fire - it's made with 5-10% resin, but it is fairly resistant to fire. People sometimes approach me with this myth. I will share a true story .... once I was in a meeting with a potential client, he had never worked with engineered stone, but said that he had herd rumours that it was highly inflammable and that it would light up with a simple lighter, so I left the meeting room, picked up a lighter and a piece of engineered stone, and asked him to demonstrate that theory ..... nothing happen as it was obvious, the resin is in a solid state and its percentage is relatively low. Although it does burn at a certain high temperature.
• Have an even gloss - gloss is very difficult to attain on dark materials, you may have different gloss levels on the same slab, the question is if it is noticeable. Just to understand polishing dark quartz has been a difficult job for all slab manufacturers, as it is for some types of granite. Most countertop fabricators may apply some chemical agents to even off the gloss, if after a while you notice shade differences on your quartz countertop, it might not be your fault.

Compac vs Silestone

Compac vs Silestone. Many of my readers have reached my blog looking for an answer to Compac vs Silestone. I figure many of you will be confronted with the choice Compac Countertops or Silestone Countertops. One thing for sure they are both Spanish companies and 2 of the biggest in the engineered stone sector.
 Things Compac and Silestone have in common?

• Compac and Silestone both use the same technology

The technology that both Compac and Silestone use are Italian know how. In MHO the one that has best results in this business. Although the main technology is similar they tend to differentiate themselves in product R&D. Which I figure Compac is slightly ahead at the moment.

• Compac and Silestone are Spanish owned companies

 Although Compac has it's quartz manufacturing plant in Portugal, due to exclusive rights of the Italian technology. Back in the 90s, Silestone went through a very tough and devastating period, they bought a few production lines and the product was not having such a great acceptance by the market. They negotiated with the Italians a exclusive rights to the Spanish market, basically protecting them from their direct competitors Compac of installing another quartz plant in the Spanish market. So, Compac installed their production plant in Portugal, which is a pain in terms of Logistics, but has proven to be a profitable project.
Compac has it's main headquarters near Valencia in a town called Gandia, which is where their engineered marble plant is located.
Silestone is manufactured at Macael, a town close to Almeria, south of Spain. Home of the Cosentino Group, one of the biggest in Spain.

• Silestone and Compac are both big marketing investors

Silestone was the pioneer, with the advertisement during the Super Bowl a few years ago, really brought them into the spotlight. Never before had anyone in the stone business been so aggressive with marketing and publicity. They've become leaders in this domain. After that they've sponsored other important VIP, namely Fernando Alonso the F1 racer, and other famous chefs.
Compac is a follower, although they've been picking up with the marketing and publicity, they've also sponsored several VIP, being Antonio Banderas one of them. Both Silestone and Compac have been on top of the industry at this level.

• Compac and Silestone have similar expansion strategies

Although Silestone has a wider International network, they both have used the warehousing strategy.

Things that differentiate Compac from Silestone?

• Core business focus

Silestone is more focused than Compac, they only deal with quartz engineered stone, therefore they have 100% of their efforts concentrated in this product line. While Compac has two manufacturing units the quartz engineered stone and the marble engineered stone. They have to concentrate in two different types of products at all levels, from investment to marketing. It's been a difficult task, as they tend to centralize both strategies, which some how slows things down.

• Silestone is the biggest

Yes Silestone is bigger than Compac, they have almost triple the production lines in quartz, and Compacs engineered marble company is having problems in selling their production capacity at the moment.

• Silestone was a bigger sales network

True, Silestone has obtained Worldwide recognition, while Compac has been focusing specifically in certain markets, Compacs main markets are Spain, Portugal and United Kingdom.

• Silestone has more colours available

True Silestone has more engineered quartz colours available. Although if you consider the marble based material, then Compac will be ahead, but in quartz Silestone has more than 50 standard colours available.

• Pure White

For those who have not been aware, Silestones Blanco Zeus was for a few years an objective for many engineered quartz companies. Not until recently did Compac produce on it's own a pure white colour comparable to Silestones Blanco Zeus. Inclusively, Compac in the past was buying from other producers, before they actually dominated technically the pure white production.

• Quality

Between both Compac and Silestone, I would say you'd get a better quality product from Compac, they are ahead in polishing and they've brought some very innovative products to the market lately. The raw materials in one and another are more or less similar.

• Price

Silestones price strategy has placed them at a higher level than Compac. Compacs price list is normally slightly cheaper than Silestone, but that's strategy, Compac is a follower in price list emission.

• Guarantee

Silestone innovated in the 10 years warranty a few years back, this helped them overcome the doubts the consumers had regarding the product. Now they give out lifetime warranty, so does Compac. Although if you have a problem Silestone will be a quick solver, they cherish their market image and an unsatisfied client is something they avoid at all costs.

Silestone colors the World

Silestone colors the World of quartz. Truth is that Silestone colors are a well establish marketing machine. No doubt that in all the solid surface industry Silestone stands out from the rest, it has accomplished several marks that distinguish it from it's direct competitors.
Silestone is the biggest manufacturer when we take into account the quartz agglomerate sector by itself. It's main production facility is located in a small town called Macael, located in the South of Spain. Silestone is one of the most successful trademarks of the Cosentino Group. Cosentino is one of the biggest natural stone manufacturers in Spain, and one of the most important in the World.
Silestone since it's appearance on National Television with a commercial during a Superbowl, has leaped ahead as the most successful company in the agglomerate stone industry. They use several marketing strategies to their advantage and today they are seen as a milestone in the industry, in some countries silestone is more than just a brand, people refer to quartz agglomerate as silestone, that's how important of a reference it is to the industry.
They keep investing millions in advertisement, in the last few years they've used Fernando Alonso the Formula 1 driver as their flag. They even created a product to which Alonso is the public image.
They have about 12 production lines, some of which are designated to specific colours, this as you can imagine increases output and quality tremendously. Normally, when color change is needed, and when the factory has only one or two production lines, they have high set-up costs, so with 12 lines, it's actually pretty efficient, although they really need a lot of volume to keep the whole plant working at full capacity.
Silestone has also created parallel spin-off businesses, namely MURO, which is a mosaic type material, used for backsplashes and other applications, this product is a good use for wastage, it is thin due to the slicing of the common material. They have also created a quartz sink unit, which supplies sinks to the kitchen industry in Silestone colors.
Besides these spin-offs, they have a kitchen countertop manufacturing unit, very sophisticated, mainly uses 2nd choice slabs, which are photographed and stored, the order of the countertops are then optimizes to the slabs useful size ... they have a special automated warehouse to manage the whole system.
It wasn't always this way in the 1990s Silestone and the Cosentino Group went through a tough crisis. The Silestone brand and product was new to the market, the trust in Silestone products was very low ... difficult times, and they took difficult measures ... and survived with great success. Silestone was the first to offer a 10 year warranty on their products, many manufacturers today don't give you this type of warranty. Silestone is also known to solve quality problems ... no questions asked ... they have managed their image in a correct way, and they have their success founded on solid ground.