hi Horse of a different color lol. Isn't it amazing how much different zone 10 Cal is from Fla.?? I maintain a screenroom,shadehouse,and grow a bunch as garden plants with temporary structures. Or let's say i used to lol. Frances and Jeanne damaged almost everything but Wilma took them out lol. The state took my orange trees because of disease and I had 50 orchids attached to them. had to move them all in two days!! My only real survivor was the screen room and aviary but you don't keep orchids with parrots lol So I'm trying to rebuild to a structure that works,thought it would be a great time to really have a temp,controlled greenhouse.that really works for the HOTHOUSE i mean Florida lol. Don't mind spending the money but want a structure that works!! had even thought of refrigeration but think I'll stick with warm growers. Anyway,i could tell you what i do for winter protection but doubt it would be useful in Cal. even in 10. Cold is such a temporary thing here counted in hours rather than days but it sure can be enough to be fatal. if your interested I'll go into detail Designing a useful greenhouse in this climate is certainly difficult but i have some brilliant ideas and this time I'll get it right LOL Sorry i couldn't be of more help to you and good luck with your project!!! gary

Ask them (or better yet, their references) what they do if the seams need to be repaired. Sometimes there is settling and a seam will chip away or crack. Have them put in writing their response. Best case: they repair the seam within a week of being notified by you. I've been trying to get my granite fabricator to fix a cracked seam for 2 months now, it's not fun. I also agree about visiting the shop to confirm the layout. Even though they say they'll match the veining, make sure it's matched in a way that you like.

We have/had a similar situation. Templating was last Friday with the fabrication to take place Monday. Unfortunately, due to other issues surrounding the cabinets (ugh), both DH had I took a huge amount of time off work last week (really bad timing for both of us), and there was absolutely no WAY we were going to be able to take time on Monday to be at fabrication. I will say that we had originally planned on being there. Cabinet guys are running really, really behind resulting in granite guy templating 3 days late. On the bright side, he WAS able to install on schedule so that everything else didn't fall behind. Okay, so it went in yesterday. There were unfortunately more seams than I wanted, mostly because of the length of our counter runs and the size of the slabs. All but one seam were beautiful. That one seam, however, was in a rather prominent place. In addition, it was literally like night and day on either side of the seam. When the templater was here, I did specifically speak about what I wanted in terms of continuity. Well, uh, so yesterday I had one granite running all the way through the kitchen except for one very small 2-foot section on the end of a counter run. It didn't just look like it came from a different slab - it looked like it was a totally different granite! We're dealing with Uba Tuba, which is usually very consistent, but these two slabs were vastly different. So, I commented to the installer about it yesterday. He agreed with me and said he and the rest of the installers had been talking about it and what to do. Well, lo and behold, before I even had a chance to call GC this morning, granite guys were in my kitchen at 8:15 a.m. pulling the odd-colored piece of granite out. His comment: "This is totally unacceptable." So, I don't have a new piece in yet, maybe later this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning. So, this is my lengthy way of saying that it can and should be fixed! I'm just so grateful that this crew knew it and there was no argument whatsoever from them. Made my day.

Mcr1: You have a good point about the levelness of the cabinets, and we are pretty fussy about that as well - As my Brother VR James has pointed out - many projects CAN be shimmed and look fine (99% of the time). One of the things that we WON'T do is just walk out on a customer that has cabinets that are "Ca-Ca"... in just about every instance - going back 24 years - we have been able to work with the cabinets - no matter how perfect or not-perfect they were, and get the job done - properly. Jerseydeb- your follow up question: "O.K. If shimming is not the best way to correct cabinets..." Don't slam the door on shimming countertops just because ONE GUY says HE thinks that this equates to a "hack job".. Mcr1 has a right to his opinion, and I totally respect that, but it sounds to me like maybe he is not a Fabricator. I am, and have been for 24 years now. Granite Fabricators -all over the world- use shims in setting countertops, monuments, and wall panels. This is because pretty much NO surface or area that we install Granite on is perfect.... This is an intregal part of the sundry items that we use in doing our trade. In every project that we do, we use shims to some degree. The gaps that are created when the shim is inserted between the top of the cabinet frame, and the bottom surface of the stone is filled with setting material (latex caulk, silicone, polyester, thinset, etc) giving a solid foundation and adheasion (sp?) to the substrate. We use latex caulk to set our countertops regardless of whether the stone is 2CM OR 3CM. There are lot's of products that work for this application, we have found that latex caulk gives us the adhesive strength we need, and IF we ever have to take a piece out for a repair (let's say that an Electrician drops a hammer on a top by accident, and we have to repair it, we can get the top out without destroying it). Back to your original question with a follow up comment: In a perfect world - in a remodel, yes it would be really great to have the countertops removed so that I could see first hand - the condition of the cabinets, and make the templates (or in my case - digitize the templates). However- this asks my customer to live with no counters and quite frankly, the market has changed from ten years ago when this was the norm, to now... customers do NOT want to live with the disruption in their lives for up to 4 to 6 weeks depending on the Fabricator's lead time in going from date of template to date of install - and this is not limited to JUST Granite tops. Many Fabricators of Granite AND other materials like solid surface, quartz, laminate, etc - are all in the same boat. With the advent of digital templating, a Fabricator can come in to your kichen, make accurate templat files (ours are accurate to 10 thousanths of an inch) and bring out perfectly fitting countertops. IF the cabinets are anywhere out of level, we address that on the day of install and get the job done. Our call back rate for broken tops due to them being set out of level is... ZERO.... hope that helps kevin