I had a call from a customer today, that is purchasing a house that has concrete countertops. The countertop is cracked, and she hates the color. I know you can do amazing things with the concrete. How would I go about figuring out what she could do, and how much it cost? Lisa, Dalton Ma
Hi Lisa,
Sorry that I am jut getting back to you now. We have been very busy with two very large jobs that use recycled glass as an aggregate and that means a lot of sourcing, soaking, smashing and sorting. Whew!
Too bad about about our version of ice stone not making the customer happy. I like the look of ice stone too, I understand that she wants the real thing. As far as the house with the cracked concrete countertops, removal and replacement of the countertops is all we can do. The cracks are an indication of poor manufacture. We replace our products if the ever develop cracks that are larger than the surface hairline cracks that sometimes occur naturally in concrete. Here are some likely culprits for the cracks.
• Large, structural cracking can happen when too much water or the right mix of cement and aggregate is used. A concrete countertop is very different from a sidewalk or slab that is supported throughout its entire area and needs to be super strong because it is resting only on base cabinets edges.
• The house may have settled and caused event the most well made, best installed countertops to crack. This is true for any solid surface.
• Some mistake may have taken place during the installation.
As far as the color, there is not much that can be done except for grinding and exposing the aggregate. The countertops have been sealed and used so acid staining is out of the question. I would be wary of anyone that claims to have an overlay that goes over the concrete. We get requests to do that for people all the time. We even got a developer asking us to put concrete over granite!
That's it. I hope that that answers your questions.
