I just had a silestone countertop installed- this is a quartz, correct?

There was a frequent poster (was it KevinMP?) who recently posted that he cracked his granite in a similar way by putting a hot pot on it. Bottom line, granite and quartz can crack if hot things are placed directly on it with no trivets. Rare, but possible.

It's one thing to crack your own countertops, but honestly I think it takes a special kind of cluelessness to do this as a guest in someone else's home. I wouldn't dream of setting a hot pans on someone else's countertops. Crazy.

If she is a chef that works in a restaurant she is also probably used to cooking at much higher heat than the typical home cook.

I gotta ask.
What's she going to do about it? Pay for the repair? Replacement?
I'll bet the kitchen owner is absolutely sick.

We're going to try a repair. It's a 2 year old install so we will be billing her. I don't know who will be paying. unfortunately when a quartz top is heat damaged it's because the resin is burnt so it's not repairable like a scratch or even a crack in granite.

Usually the burnt area, which often looks like a crescent moon, is so large that any attempt to grind it and repolish it is doomed to failure.

If that repair doesn't work, what's her other options? Just have to replace the entire counter?

Wonder how hot is too hot. I try to be careful, but should we basically treat it like laminate?

If it's in the reflection from a light source, she'll see the repair. My quartz was dulled on install by BarKeeper's Friend. The fabricator took a 5 hour class from Caesarstone to learn how to polish out the surface. After 2 1/2 hours of using various polishing tools and compounds, it just spread the dulled area into a bigger circle. They replaced my countertop.

Does the customer know she won't get a pristine surface and it could make it worse?

cust knows a repair effort is unlikely to succeed. We have been successful on lighter colors. You can bring the polish back but in my experience the worked area will always show if the lighting is right. Occasionally the lighting is such that the worked area doesn't show. usually you end up replacing the top which can get REAL expensive if the damaged piece is seamed to other piece(s). A replacement part is almost guaranteed to have a slight color difference that would show at the seam.

you could have two pieces that are VERY close in color but that difference will show if the pieces are seamed together.

Annoying double post

This post was edited by lovetodream on Thu, Apr 18, 13 at 14:22