So the granite folks like to bash Solid Surface. They have been doing this for years now. I love it. It shows there a little scared.  Where about to enter a new frontier with Solid Surface. Instead of playing there game. Lets do are thing.  Talk up the design ideas. How about something a simple as this .Solid surface is reparable. Not other surface is. Let’s keep pushing the positive stuff.

Good point Jon. Just did that with a cleint that was thinking granite just yesterday. Told her I loved solid surface because of all the design possibilities and repairiblity etc and stated granite is a rock so not much can do with it? This was on the phone then about 2 hours later in to the showrrom they come and said well here are some granite samples if you our still considering them and she said do not bother what can we do in solid surface. Gotta like it we go to her house next week to confirn colors and also what we can do in the bathroom.

Tell all the design possibilities with SS and most forget granite. 

Reuben

Well, you should care about granite Jon as apparently the SS side and their organizations that supposedly are talking up their product, are not doing a very good job of it. The majority of our SS customer base are also doing granite. There's a reason for that. Build it and they will buy so to speak.Why lose the sale? The funny thing is that the vast majority of granite shops HAVE NOT got in to doing SS. Hmmmm

I'll be blount: If I had not started offering tooling for the granite side 5 years ago, and had relied on just the cabinet & SS industries, I'd be out of business as I type this!

 WIth all due respect, Jon, Dave is right.  This sorry state of our declining market share is a direct result of ISSFA not doing it's job.  The Consumer Report debacle was only the icing on the cake.  Unlike the stone sites like findstone.com, stoneadvice.com and the MIA site, solid surface has had NO organized effort to answer bad PR, or even  insure that questions from consumers about countertop materials get a balanced answer.  

Dave is also 100% correct that as fabricators who do all types of counter tops, we have  far more credibility than purveyors of a single material.

We do need your type of approach as well, informing the public and design professional on the positive aspects of solid surface.  However, if we don't answer the attacks on our product, the public will assume them to be true.

Jon, if ISSFA won't do the job, why object to a few of us doing it?

Here is a good example of the trash feed to consumers by stone sites.  Look at the bottom of the page where it talks about granite being toxic to bacteria.

http://www.montgranite.com/index.php?targetScript=viewObject.mg.php&targetObjectId=75

We have to start answering these claims.

Here is a guy that just gave up and decided bad bacteria are actually good for us.

http://www.marblecleaning.org/helpful-hints/hints3.htm

Tom, you know I respect your opinion, so when I answer, it is only to clarifiy.

I brought up issfa only because I feel it is so important for someone to answer the attacks on our trade.

You, as usual, brought up some extremely relevant points about the lower cost of stone, and the magazines featuring it so much.  I have found in life that many times that that brings us together will eventually drive us apart.  Cheaper pricing on stone is lowering the quality of work in the trade, something that I wish the companies that  provide those who sell sheets to home owners would understand.  The tide is turning on the magazines championing of stone, they need to replace all those kitchens they sold ten years ago and need a new style to push.

However, I believe that the stone industry is in no way unorganized, just the opposite!  The MIA has copyrighted copy defending their product that is free to use and post on individuals websites.   The stone guys actively visit consumer sites and champion their product while activley  trashing our trade.  True they do resort to deception, but perhaps it is just stupidity or ignorance on their part, or even that they don't want to admit the staining and bacteria issues.  Perhaps they can not afford to if they  have a huge stone cutting cnc to make payments on.

Yes, ISSFA is indeed illrelevant.  What I respectfully objected to was the request that we ignore these attacks on solid surface.  Squabbles and snipes, yes, we are all a bunch of type A personalities, used to running the show in our respective shops, used to people saying we can not succeed (right, Mory?), and set in our ways.  Personalities will clash, mine included, but in the end we will find enough good in everyone here to realize that all should be welcome.

Here is the thing, Tom, we can do something about misinformation on the web.  Many are sites on pdf or company websites that we can't answer directly, but others are public forums that we can post comments on or about.  Make these fools back up their claims, show their deception and they will mend their ways.

So do we act like the french or the isralies?  Throw down our rifles  in surrender or go to uganda and get our people back?

Al,

One step at a time.  We can't change the world today.  What you are doing is great and in a short while we will have some great information.  I think we all need to keep in mind that stone guys have been around for hundreds of years.  SS has been around for 30.  Huge difference and that is probably the main reason the Stone guys have a better handle on things.

Let's just stick with it and we can make a change.  Let the other associations do what they do and we can do what we do.

Below is the response I left for the first link you posted.  I will post the response if I get one.

Bacteria: Bacteria requires several things in order to thrive and grow: oxygen, water, sunlight, nutrients, and a substrate to form on. The minerals in granite are toxic to bacteria. As a result, there is no habitable environment for bacteria to live and grow on a granite surface.

This claim is found on your website.  I am curious if this is backed by any testing.  If a customer of mine buys a granite slab from you and it is found to have bacteria in it, will you pay for the removal of the granite from my customers home?

I am concerned that this claim can not be backed up with any evidence.

Thank You,

Andy

Gentlemen,

I'm gonna toss in 2 cents here. As a repair and restoration company we have a myopic view of after sales product issues. So let me just say this. The ability of SS to be seamless, repaired, re-fabricated, re-finished, intergrated with both the backsplashes and the bowl and it's non-porousity are paramount to keeping it's market share of sales. The need of granite to be maintained is also a key factor. With both granite and e-stone still being affected by heat (and don't let anyone tell you otherwise), I just don't see the SS industry as being in significant danger. When we present all the facts to consumers, the answer becomes very clear. Diversity is absolutely required, but SS is here to stay (all puns intended). It is the only choice that has those traits and is still what I would put in my kitchen. BTW granite is failing at much faster pace than SS. We work on many stone tops that are just a couple to five years old.

Thanks for your 2 cents Gordon. The heat issues with granite is it more the sealer or what? Yours and other repair guys info is very good info to have for all of us.

I have been thinking some about the "stone guys" and their information they have out and one thing I see is the are pretty consistant. I stopped and thought about why is it so easy for them to be that way well its a rock and you know their aint much can do with it. Meanwhile us SS guys well look at what we all have to try and tell people. We can do inlays of all sots rout in drain boards, sandwich colors, integral sinks, coved splashes and on and on. Not to mention the fact we have 100% acrylic, polyesters (filled and unfilled), blended products man that is a lot of stuff. Now is it no wonder it is hard for us to try and get a little organized and be consistent especially when you start throwing in all the manufactures of who's better and who is not. I am even getting a headache trying to learn all I can since I am new to all this and then through in trying to learn all the cool techniques to make SS really stand out.

I just feel that somehow we need to try and simplify the info in such away that all of us can have it in a brochure, on our websites or print off and mail a customer. I mean the info is all out there, but can we put it all together similar to the guys site that gave the comparisions of  SS, E-stone and granite in a way that we know is accurate accorrding to all that fabricate and reapir all the products. Then we could put that out and keep a consistant customer education packet info out there for all of us that also tells the design capabilities of SS.

Once again just an idea and I would suggest a maybe Joe as the author, cause I anit no good at it.

Reuben

Stone is NOT the end all product that is sold as, ........ it Chips, Cracks, Burns, Breaks, Scratches, needs to be Sealed and is not that EZ to live with. From what we have seen most of this can be repaired in  one manner of another and still look pretty good. The same can be said of Quartz . I would post some photos of this but can not figure out how as of yet.  Solid Surface has many advantages that really seem to be shining thru in the Comercial market place, in time all will come to see the light!  

I'm with you, Tom, on the bacteria.  I'm an old farm boy, if your toys didn't have a bit of cow turd on it, it was still christmas morning.

My point was that this  guy was taking a differnet tack on the matter, as if you can't fight them, join them..

Andy, did I send you that report on subterranean bacteria?  Seems they can survive thousands of feet under the surface of the earth, encased in stone.  Scientists are supposedly  studing the metabolism that allows it to survive for decades if not centuries with little food or energy source.

I am still looking, but it appears that there is no doubt that bacteria can live inside a stone top as well as on the surface.