Troubles with Pompeii
Hi Tom
We recently had Pompeii 3cm granite installed in our kitchen. We haven’t had a great experience with our installers, which leaves us with three questions for you:The surface, which is sealed, has multiple small divots. These appear innumerable in direct sunlight and many can be felt - is this a normal surface polish? We’re hearing that this is normal for natural stone. I don’t like it because it looks like it is dirty all the time.
Secondly, our bar is C-shaped with side overhangs of 4″ and an 11″ overhang on the 70″seating area. Are two 9″ wood corbels sufficient for support?
Finally, we have a seam on each side of an undermount corner sink. We’re happy with one seam, but the other joins two slabs with different color and color flow directions. This granite has a lot of movement, so we’re not sure what an appropriate seam should look like. You probably won’t believe this, but when we asked to pick out individual slabs, we were told that was not possible because it would be too hard to move them around. Yes, we’re having a “Duh” moment in retrospect! We didn’t know what to expect. Wish I’d looked for your website earlier - thanks for being available!
Karyn
Hello Karyn,
Sorry to hear about your experience. Let me answers your questions for you.
Regarding the two corbels, I could answer this better if you email me a photo but I do believe what you have is sufficient since the granite is 3cm solid. If it was not ‘fractured-type’ granite I would be confident to say that at 3cm solid thickness, your overhang situation is absolutely fine as
long as the corbels are secure. However, this is weaker granite than most, so sending me a photo would be best so that I can see where the corbels were placed and how big they are.
Regarding the pits and seams, this is really unfortunate. Both of this issues are address in my “Homeowner’s Checklist” article on the Rock Blog. Unfortunately what you are describing is typical in granite like Pompeii because it is naturally highly fractured granite and the veins where the quartz meets the orthoclase tend to fill in with weak sediment over millions of years.
It is common now for overseas factories to apply a resin coating before shipping these colors in order to avoid this exact customer dissatisfaction. However, these slabs were either not resin coated or they just did not have enough to meet your satisfaction. The salesperson should have pointing this characteristic out to you during your slab selection process. There is a special product of which I am involved in the testing phase, which is coming out in about two months. It can be applied to the surface and will somewhat reduce the issue you are experience. No promise as it is still being tested, but keep in touch and I will let you know about it at the right time.
Regarding the seams, that is just bad fabrication planning. Sometimes it does not look to bad so I hope you can still enjoy the granite, but the fabricator should have matched the veining across the seam as best as possible. Matching color and veining across the seam is an industry standard. Personally, I would reject it and any local expert would say the same. I bet one of the seams could have been avoided as well.
Again, sorry to hear about your troubles. My best wishes to you and thank you for supporting the Rock Blog’s World Vision kids.
