We've harped & harped about consumer education. This about sums it up!

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.j...adID=76652

Beer my @ss, it would take something much stronger to get through that crap. It was sick to read all that BullS***. A lot of people that knew absolutely nothing about what they were talking about. WE SERIOUSLY NEED TO GET PEOPLE BETTER EDUCATED. I know that was a couple of years old but people are just as stupid today.

 

Hey, what if we all agree to pay….say 10 bucks more a sheet if the distributor/manufacturer agrees to do some national prime time advertising to educate the general public in solid surface. It’s their product and they could do some really cool ads that would help us all out. Or maybe it would be better for an organization to do that on the benefits of solid surface in general and not brand specific….hmmmm what organization would do that…it would have to be an organization for the solid surface industry….hmmmm.

 

Shane

Oh yeah, what the hell does DH stand for? Divorced Husband, Dumb @ss Husband, Departed Husband. I don’t get it.

 

Shane

Exactly Shane. I don't want to put my friends on this board through hell by reading that thread BUT, you read it, you know why consumer education is an absolute must. That was the biggest bunch of un-educated bullspit that I've ever has the displeasure of reading. It should awaken the many in our industry. Idiots looking at price...price...price. You know how many homeowners call me on a weekly basis because theur sinks fell out in their sone tops? Plenty! WHY? 29 dollar granite guy a square ft . idiot!

You get what you pay for!

Shane, I think DH is referring to Design House. I might be wrong. And I just love the "granite is impervious" part. Impervious to what? Wine? Scratching? Breaking? Your kids? Heat? A big fat chicken breast?

Geeeezzzzz. EDUCATION!

Well so much for the philosophy that consumers ar ebecoming more educated. I gues the think that consumers spending 12 extra hours finding the best price is education.  Man I guess there are a lot of us that do know our product like the Home Depot guy or  was it the customer. I'm so confussed now I might just have to start drinking again to see if I can make any of that junk make sense.

Reuben  

Dang it, Tom.  I intended on getting some sleep tonite.   Thanks for posting it.  Of course I responded.  Here it is:

 

Wow, what a discussion. I have a high end kitchen and bath cabinet shop in oklahoma city. We sell and fabricate granite, engineered stone, many brands of solid surface and the a few laminate counter tops. I have read on this thread some good responses from consumers and a lot of hype from granite shop people. If you want to find out exactly what granite really is, visit a stone website like findstone.com or stoneadvice.com . These are the guys that actually work with the stuff and have to face an irate customer when the product is oversold. Bottom line on granite is that it can be beautiful, but it will crack, stain (even with sealer), water spot, and heat can and does harm not only the stone, but it ruins the sealer. Only a fool would pay thousands for a counter top and then put a hot pot on it, unless it was tile, and I have seen them heat crack as well. Notice that you never see granite in a fast food place? Or any resturant for that matter. Be extremly careful with what you clean granite with, 409 or any high ph cleaner can ruin some types of granite. One common reply from a salesman is that granite doesn't need a warranty since nothing will happen to it, so wouldn't that be the cheapest warranty ever offered? We are doing a job this week that will have a granite top, not my favorite, but it at least is a good "granite". If you insist on having granite, learn to to a water test, and they all will absorb some water and whatever is disolved in it will never come out unless someone skilled poltices it. Buy granite for looks, not durabiltiy and you will be happy. Spend the time reading the posts on the stone sites and you will find out how easily stone scratches, even the metal saw bases and grinder bases will scratch the stuff, not to mention small chips of the stone itself. Quartz or engineered stone or E-stone, buyer beware and we do sell some of it. Bleach, oils, high ph cleaning products all stain or mar the finish, can heat crack the same as granite and solid surface, yet is not easily repaired. It takes a lot of water to polish out scratches and it does scratch. The canard about it being only 7 percent resin is deceptive. What it actually is is stone chips approximately 93% BY WEIGHT and 7% SOLID SURFACE! The solid surface can be scratched, but won't stain. The stone chips can stain but are less likely to scratch. Regardless, when it is scratched, and it will eventually scratch, you can't get the scratches out! A hot pot will leave a white ring that isn't coming out without it going back to the factory. The template man will give you a three page letter warning you of all of this, heck they even post placards at home depot warning of heat cracks, scratch and staining! And the warranty doesn't cover any of that anyway. Buy quartz or engineered stone only if you want a counter that doesn't need to be pretty, but durable and you don't mind that it gets beat up. Solid surface, my favorite because it is warranteed, done only by licensed fabricators for quality, easily repaired regardless of what happened, stain proof (period, no exceptions except extremly active items like sulfuric acid and low bases like lye, basically stuff that would put your eyes out)and you can use the seamless sinks as well as near invisible seams (most are invisible). I have personally redone entire countertops that were botched by a new fabricator (not my guys, warranty claims from manufactures), cut them apart and reseamed and even replaced entire sections putting the top back to perfection. I have built tops for shows, then reworked them into other showroom samples with invisible seams. One of the counter top fabricator sites did a survey asking what a fabricator would have in his or her own kitchen. Over 80 percent chse solid surface, even though most of us on the site fabricate all types of counter tops. I sell them all, have no dog in the fight here, but I don't like to see products oversold cause then some one comes in my shop with impossible expectations of what materials strong points are. Buyer beware! Do visit a counter tops shop or a stone yard before you make your decision to go with a big box store. Do your homework and trust the fabricator websites rather than someone who has had good luck with ONE countertop or someone who sells granite or any other counter top exclusively.

Al,

Loved the post.  In the future could you break it up with a few paragraphs.  My eyes start to wander without them.

Shane,

DH.. I think means 'Darling Husband", however, I like your definitions better.

AL,   I cannot think of a better post to copy and paste onto that EBay site. I would break into paragraphs as Andy said.  Like it or not AL, you are the voice for the industry we need.  I'll send my $400.00 to you for that kind of representation. Educate the consumer better, the more that will call us, the more jobs we all get. Now that is return on investment.

KC    

Have any of you gone to the 2 sites Al posted in his reply?  If not they are pretty good and could sell a lot of solid surface.  I think those would be good links to have on your website so customers can do their own research about what materials to choose.  Solid surface truly is the only life long counter top.

John

John, What 2 sites??

Al I got a kick out of this ..." putting the top back to perfection" ... LOL Thanks great post !!!

I was thinking of you, Karl, when I wrote that.  What I would like to see is for you to write something on repairing solid surface, challenges and some really impressive pics or statistics on repair needs and what caused the problem.

KC, they are findstone.com and stoneadvice.com    and if you want to sell against stone or e-stone or even want to sell stone, you need to read every darned post on the sites.  I keep a binder full of questions off the findstone.com site to show customers.  If they even mention granite, that binder comes out, along with the granite tiles that I stained with common food items, and the scratched up granite tiles.

Tom, I haven't checked back yet to see if others have differeces with my opinion, but I think a bunch of the posts were shills for the stone trade.  Good find, by the way.  Now, go find some more and post them here.

I purloined that little nugget on the percentage by weight off stoneadvice.com from a stone guy savaging e-stone.  If I remember  right, he got it from an e-stone salesman.  One guy posted that he burned up a chunk after weighing it and weighed the residue and concurred with the weight not volume.

Actually, I put in paragraphs but the ebay site "ate" them, then I had no choice but to copy and paste from that.  I will put the paragraphs back in next time.

You guys help me out by writing some good ideas for highliting the pluses of solid surface.

Feed me some ammo!  Find more of these sites and we can start educating folks.

Opps, sorry Dave, I thought Tom posted this originally.  I stand corrected.

Al, I'm always willing to help when I can, but as you can tell from this site I'm not much of a writer. One of the best things about solid surface is that it is RENEWABLE, what other products can say that ? We do have some pretty cool before and after photos, we take photos of all jobs. Also we restore all solid surface brands and from what we have tracked, problems are less than 3% of all tops installed. Of  that small amount we are able to completely RENEW the tops 99% of the time, only about 1% can not be restored. I still have much to learn about restoring Stone, but many issues can not be restored / renewed so you just have to live with the issue or replace the Stone.

Karl, may I quote you?  I'll give credit of course to you as the source.