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.

Hi Tom,

I read your blog regularly and gladly paid the $18 for my question. I recently had granite countertops installed-some kind of cross between Peacock green, butterfly and Uba Tuba, and have 2 areas of concern.

I was unhappy with the edge of the seam so the installers tried to “fix” it, making it worse and leaving a 3″ circular “milky” area around the surface and the edge. It is noticeable.

Also, there are light bristle-looking brush “sweeps” on the top surface that follow around the sink cut-out. It is only seen by DH and me when the light hits it a certain way.

One “expert” told us that the brush marks were probably done when the machine rolled over the top to cut the sink. The surface probably wasn’t protected properly and some granite dust got underneath and created the scratches. He went on to advise us against trying to fix it because it could damage the shine making it worse.

The fabricator then brought in two stone restoration specialists who tested a small area and said they could grind the area down to the scratches using diamond pads with running water and then seal it bringing back the polished shine.

Does this sound right to you? We want it perfect, but are afraid of making it worse. Also, can the sealer hurt such a dark stone? Please advise…

Thanks, Susan

Hi Susan,

There is no doubt that the right expert can fix this. This is not a pretty situation but unfortunately it does happen too often by fabricators/installers when they are inexperienced. I actually commend them for bringing in a specialist instead of making more excuses to you.

The success lies directly in the hands of the restoration specialist’s skill set. It is not a quick process either. It could take several hours going through each diamond pad level to get the right final finish. I would expect that no restoration specialist with any kind of experience would attempt this unless he knew what he was doing.

I don’t think you heard them right about ’seal it back up to bring back the shine’. What they probably mean is use higher grit diamond pads to bring the surface back to the original polish level of the countertop.

So, I won’t bother going through all the steps that he needs to do, but let the specialist have at it. You will probably be happily surprised about the result.

Best wishes!

Tom, just read your response to John regarding fissures and Ubatuba. We just had an install ourselves. Many fissures all over. Fabricator/Installer coming back next week. Will address it then, but my question is will the fissures get worse over time? We have a downdraft gas stove top right in the middle of the counter and the fan portion is very heavy, will that cause more? Uba Tuba was by far the most attractive better priced granite we found but now I understand why. Can a special epoxy sealer be put on to give us the best chance of no further hairline fissures? Any other suggestions? Also know that we have a undermount sink with no supports just added and a counter overhang not quite resting on the three corbels it was suppose to, will they shim it?? It that a potential crack area too?? Linda

Hello Linda

The fissures will not increase and I want to add that some people actually like the fissures because of the nature of the stone. If you have direct sunlight on the countertop, you will experience more ‘browning’ in the stone overall. This comes from inherent oxidation in Ubatuba granite.

Best wishes!

We had kitchen counter tops installed today. After the installers left my wife was looking over the granite and noticed what I would call a fissure approximately 16 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. you can feel a ridge along the edge of the fissure, it also looks like it was filled with epoxy? Could this be a gouge in the slab that was repaired or just a natural problem. I left a message with the company to come out and take a look at it.

Tim

Hello Tim,

The photos you sent me show a filled groove in the granite that is not a natural seam. Natural seams are common in exotic granite and need to be accepted or rejected by the homeowner prior at the time of reviewing the slabs. See my article, The Homeowner’s Checklist. Most likely this gouge was made at the factory overseas and you should have seen it on the slabs prior to fabrication. If looks like the epoxy fill was put on before the slabs was even polished overseas.

It is a pretty good fill job but too wide for acceptance in my opinion. I really don’t think it was proper to provide this to you without you being aware of it. The fabrication company could at least dig out the epoxy and redo it with color to better match the granite. Ask them to try that.

Best Wishes,
Tom Cordova

Hi, We had granite countertops installed in our new home. They said the color is indian copper.

Our problem is that the entire surface has rough dull spots in it. When outside light is shining in it looks like water spots all over the surface but they are not water spots it is those rough spots that are dull that reflect the light that way. There are also a couple of spots that are so rough if you run your fingernails across it you can feel the rough spots. Is this acceptable or did we get really poor quality granite. Do you have any suggestions?

Jennifer

Hello Jennifer.

Did you inspect the slabs before fabrication? This granite has softer spots that do not polish evenly with the other minerals in the granite. I don’t believe you got poor quality of that particular granite; but I hope you got what you bought! I know it is too late but please refer to my Home Owner Checklist to see if the fabricator guided you properly during your buying experience.

Best wishes,
Tom Cordova

There is a follow-up to this post under “Choosing Granite“.

Hello Tom,

I just had my Granite Counters installed, (picked 3 slabs at AZ TILE, no polishing or deep scratches ). My fabricator apparently gave 1 of the slabs polishing scratches (circular and very light, very numerous on Black Maroon Cohiba granite) while making the edge. Even though the scratches are light and very fine, they are very obvious and run 3″ x 90″ on the edge of one of my kitchen counters. From reading your great web site, so informative, are these the type of scratches that can not be fixed. Once that fine ‘gray line’ is in there, is it for good?

Hello Patricia,

The scratches are permanent unless the edging is sanded down to the grit at which the scratches were made. In other words, circular scratch are removed during the finishing process, but will be visible unless each sanding step is completed. With a dark color granite (Maroon Cohiba), the appearance of any scratch is enhanced. My recommendation is to apply a Stone Enhancer to dull the visual intensity of the scratch.

First, you must remove any sealer that has been applied to area (use Acetone) or else the enhancer will not absorb into the granite. Be sure to apply the Enhancer quickly and wipe it off quickly. Note, test a small area first. You only want the Enhancer to absorb into the tiny scratches, not the polished granite. Try the Enhancer up to three times, 20 minutes apart. Reply sealer to the whole area after 48 hours. Good luck, and again, test a smaller area first and if you have any bad affects, remove the Enhancer with the Acetone as soon as possible.

Best wishes,
Tom Cordova