If you’re in the market for a new quartz kitchen countertop, you’ll need to know where to start your shopping and the places to avoid. Slabs are not all manufactured equally. To get the best quality counter and installation, you’ll want to ensure that you’re dealing with top professionals who know how to do the job right.
Home Depot and Lowe’s Are Duping You
Buying a countertop from Lowes or Home Depot is a big no-no. You’ll only be able to see a small sample of the actual counter and not the slab installed in your kitchen before it arrives.
You’ll be going into your purchase essentially blind and may not like the finished product when it gets delivered to your door. The sample cannot reflect the full-size stone that you are buying.
Their Installers
When things go wrong, it’s not easy to get them corrected. There are horror stories from people who purchased their quartz counters from these big-box stores only to find out later that the installers weren’t up to par. It’s always a lot harder to control things when working with a large department store.
These bigger stores act as middlemen for the company selling the raw stone and a second company that fabricates and installs while taking a cut of the profit for “brokering” the sale. Why buy from a distributor that outsources the work to a local company when you can go direct to the source?
Here’s A Better Place To Purchase Quartz
The best place to buy your new countertop is a local stone yard. You’ll be able to drive to their showroom to handpick your new slab. You’ll have your choice between many patterns and designer colors and see how the same color can vary a bit.
Seeing and touching the actual slab that will be fabricated to fit your kitchen is the key to not being surprised when your new kitchen worktop arrives.
Most stone yards also provide custom fabrication and have professional, experienced installers on site. The same company that sells you the material is the same one that will install it.
Editor Tip: Use Yelp or another review site to see how they have been treating their customers. Angie’s List is also another excellent resource but Yelp is free.
A stone yard provides a one-stop-shop for quartz countertops, and you’ll be dealing with true professionals in the craft. They don’t sell tools, appliances, equipment, and household supplies.
They concentrate on stone products and know them inside and out. Many are also family-owned, so the knowledge and expertise have been passed down from one generation to the next.
If you don’t want to settle for second best for your new countertop, consider driving out to a stone yard in your local area. You’re much more likely to receive excellent service at a fair price.
Since you’ll see it daily once installed, this may be one of the most important home improvement decisions you’ll ever make.
Are you on the fence at all about which type of counter to buy? Have you compared quartz vs granite?