Silestone Quartz

Silestone Quartz counter-tops are available in a wide variety of colors, patterns and families of materials.
Whether you are looking for a polished, leather-ed, or volcano finish, Silestone has a color and texture to make your vision a reality. Stone Masters inc is authorized to fabricate and install these materials for you.

Silestone: See all the Silestone Colors online or in our showroom.

Stone Masters Inc. fabricates the following product lines from this family of products; Eco by Constintino, Prexury Collection by Consentino, Eco by Consentino, Sensa by Consentino and finally Silestone by Consentino. Call or stop by for details or to see samples.

The most frequently asked question we get here at Stone Masters is, "Which material is better quartz or Granite?" Let me try to address that question right here.

Quartz is more expensive than most natural stones, why?  

To make quartz slabs first it is quarried, then crushed, sized, sorted, molded into slabs, heated, compressed under extreme pressure, cooled, polished and inspected.   To make granite of other natural stone slabs, they are quarried, cut, polished and inspected.

How much more expensive?
   Granite starts at $43 per Square foot while quartz starts at around $69 per SF depending upon waste.  Both materials are available in higher priced versions, colors, textures and variations.

What is the real maintenance required?
     Annual sealing is required with granite, but not with quartz. Some granites do not need to be sealed because they are coated with resin. These stones are FAR less susceptible to staining and do not require sealer nearly as much as the un-resin treated stones.

What is involved in sealing natural stone?
     Basically, you wipe on a liquid sealer, wait 10-15 minutes and wipe off the excess.

What are other differences between granite and quartz?
      
A)    Both materials can chip, but granite is much easier and cheaper to repair if it does.  One doe not appear to chip more or less than the other. This opinion is based upon thousands of installations over the period of a decade.
      
B)    Both materials are heat resistant but granite has a higher resistance to thermal shock (temperature Damage) because unlike quartz it is not held together with resin/binders. With Quartz use a trivet before placing hot pots/pans on your counter-top.

C)    Both materials are scratch resistant but not scratch proof, quartz is a little harder than granite but much more difficult if at all possible to repair while granite is easier to repair if it should scratch. In 10 years time, we have had less than 3 customers call wanting to get a scratch polished out of either granite or quartz, it is just not the big deal that some are being led to believe.

Opinion:
The biggest difference is the look. Granite is natural and has veins and variation that some think is beautiful while quartz is more consistent and is making strides in appearing like a natural stone. Each year the quartz manufacturers get close to real stone. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so you have to see and feel each material and decide which is right for you.