You’ve picked out your stone, confirmed all the project details, been measured, and have helped design the layout of your new, beautiful prospective counters. Now it’s the much anticipated day. Your new counters are arriving today.
So, now what?
1. The Call
The installers are going to give you a heads-up call to let you know that they are on their way. When they arrive, they’re going to do a detailed pre-inspection of your kitchen to ensure they have a safe plan to install your new counters as well as to assess the existing condition of everything.
2. Bring in the Counters
After this, they’re going to bring in your counters piece by piece. At this time, your door will need to be propped open or someone will need to be on standby to help open the door. Stone counters are extremely heavy, so navigating a doorknob while carrying them is not the best idea. The counters are either set up standing vertically then laid down on top of the cabinets or, in the case of islands for example, they touch the sides of the counter to the cabinets then roll the counters down. Despite the size and the weight of the stone, the installers are very gentle about this as we care about your cabinets and your beautiful new stone counter tops.
***If there are some small modifications required, have no fear! Our installers aren’t specialized movers, they’re trained professional installers and fully capable and equipped to cut and polish your stone counters. They’ll do the modifications on the truck to minimize dust in your home. Once they have all the pieces in, they’re going to start the seam. Whether we’re using a pre-colored adhesive or a two-part epoxy that we can custom color, this glue has a strong odor, so we’d be more than happy to have open windows at this time if that’s comfortable for you (it dissipates in about an hour). The first step of doing the seam is leveling the counters with shims.
3. The Seams
Once this is done, they’ll prepare glue, set up a seam machine, and pull it together. The machine not only pulls the two pieces of stone together evenly, it also pushes onto the stone at various spots to allow the installers to level further to get the flattest seam possible.
4. Secure to the Cabinets
Now that the seam or seams are done, the installers will secure the counters to the cabinets using the blocking method (wood blocks are glued on three sides and placed on the undersides of the new counters so that they secure the counters to the cabinets at the corners) and install any sinks. Installing sinks is a breeze. We use a powerful adhesive, but we also have mechanical cabinet anchors if you prefer.
5. It Gets Loud
Sinks and seams are done, now we have to start making a bit of noise. If you have a drop-in style cooktop, at this point we’re going to begin cutting for that. We use a vacuum as well as an exhaust fan with large flexible ducting to minimize the dust. Regardless, cutting into stone is dusty and loud, and we’re sorry about that!
***We cut cooktops onsite because they require a very large hole. It leaves too little stone at the front and the back of the counters to safely carry in. If you have the template available, we precut the corners, but there’s still a lot of dust and noise. The only exception to needing to cut onsite is with quartz. Being man-made, it has a little bit of flexibility that natural stone doesn’t.
6. Holes for Faucets
The final bit of noise and dust is drilling out any holes for your faucets. This isn’t too terribly dusty, but it is fairly loud. Our installers wear hearing protection. We recommend enjoying a different part of your home for any cutting or drilling.
7. The Clean-Up
The counters are now installed, sinks are hung, seams are done, and any cooktop is cut. What next? Now, we clean. The installers will do a thorough job cleaning the counters. After they’ve cleaned the counters, they’ll apply silicone or caulk as necessary or requested. Following the cleaning, they do a thorough inspection of their work. If there are any repairs required, such as small chips, they’ll do them at this time. Once they’re satisfied, they’ll ask you to do your own inspection and sign off on their work as a thrilled customer.
Finally, it’s going to be difficult, but we recommend waiting until breakfast to enjoy your beautiful new counters. This allows time for any and all glue that we’ve used to cure.
At Granite Busters, we do a very thorough pre-purchase breakdown of the process, but if you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our wonderful project managers. We’d love to help!
