Granite Worktop Customer
A few bits of granite worktop news from the week
It’s been a little bit of a week.
Just the other day I wrote a piece about some of the issues and industry standards connected with templating. I included our regular check list of things that must be in place and sorted before we can go ahead and make your template.
And this week we had a classic. A big installation – new granite worktops on a large kitchen with Howdens units – was templated, the installation date set, the worktops manufactured, loaded, delivered… for our fitters to find that the kitchen units were no longer in the position where they had been templated but were scattered around the room. There had been the need to make some adjustment, but nothing had been said about it and our lads turned up on what was really a fool’s errand.
Granite Worktops - moving the units
The problem with moving the units after templating is not simply delay to the fit and wasted journeys. The units were moved in order to adjust a few things. That means they are not going back exactly where they were at time of templating. That means that the template is invalidated, and, far worse, the manufacture of the worktops themselves is compromised. It may be that the difference will be slight, but small angle changes lead to big gaps, in our experience, and it is all too easy to render an entire set of worktops completely unusable.
At the time of writing I am not sure where the pieces are going to fall on this one, but one way or another there will be cost.
Granite Worktop: Recommendations, disclaimers and customer service
The other event this week was far closer to home for me, as I work in sales. A customer wishes to install 20mm thick granite worktops. He also wants to save money by using an old bin end / trade clearance slab which we mentioned on our website, mixing it with a slab from current stock so as to get all of the worktops and splashbacks that he needs. Both of those things are not what we would recommend. As I wrote to him in our quotation:
- We do NOT recommend installing natural stone at 20mm thickness and could not take responsibility for any cracking of the material post-installation. This is not to say that the job cannot be done satisfactorily this way, but we would recommend particular attention to the levelling of the units, that the clearances around the hob are larger than usual (see attached Customers’ and Installers’ Guide) and that there is very adequate support at the breakfast bar, with no unsupported overhang greater than 150mm.
- We do NOT recommend mixing stone from different batches of granite and cannot be held responsible for any visible mismatch in your installation.
Granite worktop: Our commitment
Our customer is still keen to go ahead. Certainly, the 20mm thickness and use of the bin end slab really help him on price. And on top of that, he simply likes the thinner profile look. So I have been trying to work with him. Images were sent, showing the difference between the two slabs of 20mm Black Galaxy we have available.
The point is that in this case, our customer has heard our warnings and received our caveats, and still wishes to do something which isn’t our norm. He has every right to do so, and I want to work with him and our templaters, manufacturers and fitters to get him the very best granite worktop installation possible.
Ultimately, in our industry, as in every other, the customer is always right. Even when they are ‘wrong.’
When we make a recommendation, we do so in good faith. When we make a disclaimer, we do so knowing that it’s wise. But when a customer wishes to do the unusual thing, our job is (caveats and disclaimers all accepted) to help him/her to achieve the best possible installation that we can for their kitchen worktops.
When we publish a standard, or define a check list, it is for a reason. Moving units after templating ALWAYS involved some on-cost, and sometimes that is pretty catastrophic. Even so, the customer is always right. They are paying, and they will need to pay for the double-template and double fit (not to say double manufacture.) But our job is still to help them achieve the kitchen countertops they want, in the best way possible. That is our commitment, and we stand by it, even at times of (you can understand!) fairly extreme frustration.
We are Affordable Granite, the leading installer of granite and quartz worktops in Surrey, Sussex and across the South East. For samples, quotes and any questions connected with any aspect of worktop installation or kitchen design, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 01293 863992 or by email on sales@affordablegranite.co.uk/ .
