Depends on how / what the cabinets are constructed with.
1/2" sides and backs, maybe not. 3/4" plywood yes.

You can put 3/4" plywood underneath the countertops, that will help. But cheap / weak sides will always be a problem. Try another cabinet manufacturer.

A good frameless cabinet that can handle stone counters will have solid rails on the inside of the cabinet at the top - a solid piece of wood mounted at the top inside of the cabinet from front to back with another rail just under it on the side running from front to back. Counters are attached to this - similar to corner blocks in face-frame cabinets.

Frameless cabinets get their strength once installed (attached) together side-to-side. The inside top rails keep the individual cabinets square and add strength to support the counters. Face-frame cabinets get their strength from the face-frames, corner blocks keep them square - they can stand alone.

I'd call the cabinet manufacturer and check. I find it hard to believe that there is a cabinet that can not support granite.

Oh sorry, I just checked - the RAILS go from SIDE-to-SIDE in frameless cabs. There are 2 rails at the front top inside of the cabinet - parallel to the floor (one flush with top of sides, one below drawer). And a rail at the top back of the cabinet, also parallel to the floor, mounted above the rail that runs along the back of the cabinet (back rail - what you screw through to attach to the wall).

I don't have frameless cabs, but this is from the book "The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker" by Robert W. Lang.

Yes, there ARE differences in construction quality, so not ALL cabinets will be able to handle granite.

Check the RAILS inside the cabinets! Best to do this with counters and drawers removed. But, you can always bring a flashlight into the showroom, remove the top drawer and look up inside to see the rails.

If you are determined to use these cabinets you can reinforce them with new rails yourself, but I'd personally try to find a better cabinet manufacturer.

Thanks for the info. Home Depot doesn't sell Premier any more. They now sell Martha Stewart's line of cabinets instead. So I'm guessing that was just a "convenient lie."

The KD confided that the Martha Stewarts aren't selling very well. I thought that was interesting.

I still want frameless. Thanks!

Based on reviews the Martha Stewart cabinets are pure crap - really shoddy construction.

I take it you live in the US where a Home Depot employee (among other folks) would be largely clueless about frameless construction. As pointed out Ikea cabs can and do support granite. It is possible some manufacturers may recommend some special measures but it is categorically untrue that frameless cabinets can't support granite or need to made of 3\4 plywood to do so safely. Talk to a dealer who actually sells a frameless line like Kitchen Craft or Cabico to get the actually skinny.

When we went to Home Depot, the "kitchen designer" there said that "frameless cabinets will fall out of the wall". First of all, Home Depot doesn't sell frameless (or they didn't last summer when we were looking), so they'll say whatever so that you won't go elsewhere to buy frameless cabinets. Second of all, the Home Depot "KD" is just someone (at least the one we worked with) with no KD background, but who had HD train her on how to use the kitchen design software. Our experience was that not only did she make up lies about frameless cabinetry, but that her design used a ton of filler, which is a terrible waste of space. It's because she didn't know how to design kitchen cabinets, so she just used filler wherever she didn't know what else to do.

We left HD, and ended up with a small local manufacturer, semi-custom cabinets. They are frameless, there is no filler, the KD (who repped the local manufacturer) was very skilled and thought of great ways for us to maximize space. And, the cabinets were less expensive than the plan the HD KD put together.

We have a small kitchen. In a small kitchen, I would only do frameless. With framed cabinetry you lose a lot of storage space, particularly in the drawers, and we needed to eke out every inch. BTW, we've had our kitchen cabinets installed about 8 months, with granite counters, and it looks great, and no special reinforcement needed.

I have absolute black, a pretty heavy and dense granite, over Brookhaven frameless cabinets. Never heard a word from the KD or the granite fabricator that the cabinets would not support it so I hope it will....I am only 18 months in. However, I will say that the space benefit in the frameless wrt drawers is amazing. I have all drawers in my lowers and every time I max out the space used I am amazed. I would never have framed cabinetry after this. Good luck!

I red that Fabritec would be supplying an RTA line to HD stores in the US. As they only make frameless for our market I assumed it would still be frameless in the US - maybe not. Even Thomasville is frameless in Canada (we don't get the face frame line sold in the US).

Everything old is new again. We purchased frameless Thomasville cabinets from HD in 2003. I can't remember who made that line then -- maybe Diamond or Schrock? They held up our granite just fine. And our frameless Ikea cabinets in the current house are holding our quartz up just fine. That KD filled you with a lot of bunk. Of course, if the Martha cabinets really are of poor quality, maybe there's a tacet warning in there for you.

Funny, I was in HD the other day and noticed a large setup in the kitchen department featuring a new line of cabinets - frameless. The display compared how much more room there was available in frameless as opposed to framed cabinetry. IIRC the display featured either a granite or quartz countertop.

Helene

The only place you have to worry at all with a frameless cabinet/granite interface would be where the stone is narrow at the front for a cooktop or sink opening. Some frameless manufactures will build a solid header behind the false front, or add a valance behind full door cabinets to support the countertop and also cover the front of the sink on the inside.

Without the support of the faceframe, there is considerable risk on the front piece of stone if there is any pressure applied.(like somebody stepping on it to change a light bulb above the sink)

A good granite fabricator will also inlet and epoxy in a steel rod in these types of installations to help.

I dont think there is a frameless cabinet made with less than a 5/8 end panel, and that is plenty to support the load.

Maybe the Martha Stewart cabinets are the ones that won't support granite!

I have frameless Brookhaven cabinets with 3 cm marble and Woodmode frameess with 3 cm very dense granite. Three years plus and plenty of stuff on top of those counters and not one creak, crack or shimmy. Nor do I ever expect one.

I have frameless cabs (Aristocratic) with granite. My last kitchen had frameless (Brookhave) with granite.
KD is misinformed.

Rollie has a good point. Our fabricator did add steel to the front of the cooktop area.

Your KD is a liar or just plain stupid!

The type of cabinet construction makes no difference, but as Nat says - poorly specified construction details and/or cheap materials can make a difference. Cheap and thin sides are no good on framed cabinets either!.

You spoke to a SALESperson. Unfortunately most salespeople have ulterior motives in the information (or more appropriately, misinformation) that they tell you. We just did two custom bath vanities and the cabinet builder totally trashed frameless cabinets too. Makes sense considering he only can build framed ones, and he didn't want me to jump ship for a frameless builder or company (which we couldn't afford anyway).

I'm much happier with the quality and utility of the frameless KitchenCraft cabinets I have in my kitchen. They look and work great with my *granite* countertops.

True - most "Kitchen Designers" are nothing more than cabinet salepeople. Whether at Home Depot or a cabinet / kitchen showroom.

If you need layout / design help you need to hire a REAL Certified Kitchen Designer - an Interior Designer (not a "Decorator" either) who specializes in kitchen design. Pay upfront just for the design service - make sure they do not sell anything!

If you want to understand cabinet construction quality, then get a good book on cabinet construction - it will explain the good, the bad, and the ugly. I have lots of books on furniture making and joinery, and two on kitchen cabinets. Of them the only one I recommend (for cabinets) is "The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker" by Robert W. Lang. Others have good reviews as well, but of the ones I have that is the best. You don't need to be making your own cabinets to benefit from the information.

As for face-frame vs. frameless, Alku05, I find it odd that a cabinetmaker who does face-frames cannot do frameless. Frameless is a lot easier to build because QUALITY face-frame cabinets require a LOT of special tools and jigs. Maybe your guy has no clue about cabinetmaking at all because real face-frames require mortise-and-tenon connections of the face-frame itself and dadoing or rabbeting the frames onto the cabinet fronts. Cheap face-frames use pocket screws, in which case I'd opt for frameless as well.

As for the material, OF COURSE the thickness of the sides makes a difference! It's like comparing a wall with studs placed 16" OC vs. 24" OC - obviously 16" is a lot stronger. So, 3/4" is a LOT stronger than 1/2", and furniture grade plywood (no voids) is a LOT more stable than ordinary plywood. And dadoed backs are a lot stronger than rabbeted backs (backs keep the sides together), and dovetailed drawer boxes are stronger than dadoed boxes, which are stronger than rabbeted boxes (and ALL drawer bottoms MUST be dadoed between the sides).

As for particle board and MDF, they both crumble and disintegrate if they get wet, so they must be laminated with melamine to protect them, but if that gets a crack and gets wet the joints will fall apart. I've seen this first-hand with MDF - I bought it once for the back of a painted DVD shelving unit because it was less than half the cost of plywood (and more than twice the weight). I forgot to clean up my scraps outside and it rained - I came back to a pile of sawdust; the book confirms this and warns that such cabinets can never be repaired once the material gets wet. Granted, modern plywood quality has gone WAY downhill, so some people like MDF because it has a more uniform surface; this is a MAJOR gripe among woodworkers. So, if you are looking for very high quality cabinets like they were made back in the day it will be custom and VERY expensive because furniture-grade plywood is VERY expensive. Solid wood is actually cheaper, but that has it's own problems with expansion and contraction, and even the best woodworkers are loathe to use it because you have to make sure the grain is running in the proper directions to avoid uneven warping and cupping. Some woodworkers will use solid wood, but none that I know of will guarantee that it won't warp and cup; in fact most will make you sign a contract stating that you know the faults and they are NOT responsible for any future problems.

Thinking about purchasing frameless cabs from Brookhaven...has everyone 's held up with granite counter tops?

The sides of a cabinet provide support for the counter tops. The top and bottom (or face frame in a face framed cabinet) of the cabinet are there to keep the sides of the cabinet from falling over, and the bottom also serves as a shelf. The back panel of the cabinet is used to keep the cabinet square and give you a way to attach the cabinet to the wall.

A face-frame cabinet has a face-frame applied and provides visual detail. There is no "top", the face frame keeps the sides together. It also allows you to build a longer cabinet, so you can have the 72" wide runs. With frameless, you are limited to roughly a 36" wide cabinet.

In this pic, you can see my frameless cabinets, two are standard, and one is a sink base. The standard ones have a full 3/4" sheet for the top and bottom. This sheet keeps the sides from falling over and gives you a surface to screw the sides in to. It does provide some support for the countertop, but that load is transferred to the cabinet sides anyways.

In a face-framed cabinet, the top sheet isnt there, and instead, the cabinet has a face frame. You can see a direct comparison in the second picture. Notice how similar the face framed cabinet looks compared to my sink cabinet in the first pic.

Short answer is that the countertops are supported by the cabinet sides, and 3/4" should be just fine for granite.

{{gwi:1809270}}

as mentioned above, the sides carry all the weight.

Feet underneath the cabinets are often the weakest element, not the side panels.
The top sheet is there to help keep things square when transporting and installing. It is not necessary. I removed it on the day the granite arrived.

Cabinets do not normally have tops - Face-Frames have corner blocks at the top inside of cabinets, and Frameless have rails on the inside top going from side-to-side to keep them square. If you remove the counter you should be able to see the top drawer from above. SOME cabinets have a "dust cover" but that is not stuctural.

Many countertop fabricators say you do not need a sheet of 3/4" plywood set atop the cabinet run before counter install, but I'd still air on the side of caution and add it if I was using anything heavy like stone or concrete.

Here is a picture where you can see some of the construction of our frameless cabinets.

By the way, I'd heard statements like this before we bought frameless:
Frameless cabinets get their strength once installed (attached) together side-to-side. The inside top rails keep the individual cabinets square and add strength to support the counters. Face-frame cabinets get their strength from the face-frames, corner blocks keep them square - they can stand alone.
So I decided to check ours when they arrived. I leaned against them as hard as I could in various ways and couldn't get one standing alone to rack. Maybe that is true of some of the more lightly built ones, but ours (DeWils) are quite stable before installation.

We have 2 cm granite with 3/4" plywood below. Our cabinets have been in place for over 5 years and are doing fine. Some don't feel that the plywood is necessary and some only do it for 2 cm but not 3 cm. If you have 2 cm with a laminated edge and frameless cabinets, you need something to raise the granite high enough that the laminated edge doesn't hang down low enough to block the top doors and drawers. The plywood does that so if it wasn't there, there would have to be some thing between the granite and the cabinet tops to raise it high enough.

Rodding thin parts of the granite has been mentioned above. It is fairly controversial and I would rather have granite properly supported from below rather than having rodding. We have a range top so the issue doesn't arise there but in front of our sinks. The problem with rodding is that it embeds a steel rod in epoxy in a groove cut in the granite. Steel of course has a different thermal expansion than granite so it can actually stress the granite. It may weaken rather strengthening.

We do have steel inset into the plywood under the island top to support the 15" seating overhang without corbels or legs, but it isn't epoxied or attached to the granite.

We have IKEA boxes with heavy as can be soapstone... no problems

I was wondering about epoxied steel rods in granite - never made sense to me either. Totally different than reinforced concrete.

Your cabs are 3/4" plywood - I wouldn't expect them to rack by leaning on them. But the problem isn't leaning on them - it's the weight applied directly from above with a heavy countertop. A frameless cabinet can, in theory, fall apart if it is just one cabinet standing on it's own with a counter - just like a roof - that's why roofs have collar-ties between the rafters - so the two sides don't pull apart. On Face-Frames the frame resists the pulling force. I guess it's a tension vs. compression thing.

natschultz,

As seen above in three examples, the frameless cabinets all have some sort of top plate, which keep the sides together. These top plates are all attached using screws. Im not sure why you think a frameless cabinet is just going to fall apart compared to a face framed cabinet. The face frame does the same thing, and depending on how the face frame is attached, could even be weaker. Ive seen many face frames that were attached using only 16 gauge finish nails.

ANY cabinet can fall apart if built with substandard materials or methods. FWIW, I tore out all my face framed cabinets with a 2lb hammer. I attempted to destruct a test frameless cabinet that I built using the same 2lb hammer. I also tried to destruct it by jumping up and down on it. I ended up having to remove the screws.

Went to HD yesterday. There is a new cabinet line called Innermost by Elkay. It is frameless. Can't find much on them when I google. Does anyone know anything about them?