SELF-CLEANING GRANITE AND QUARTZ WORKTOPS

Keeping a kitchen spotlessly clean can seem like a full-time job. Back when we began, nearly a quarter of a century ago, most customers had black granite worktops, and they could really be hard work to keep smear free. But even with lighter coloured natural stones and the ever-popular marble-look quartz, cleaning can still be a chore.

For years, the holy grail in the solid-stone kitchen worktop industry has been the self-cleaning worktop. Whenever members of the Worktop Fabricators Federation get together to chew the fat and enjoy a bottle or three, the subject always returns here – how to make ongoing care of the worktop ever easier.

The cleaning chore – keeping those worktops gleaming!

A 16 Megapixel camera sensor in the 2013 Lumix GH3 camera – with self-cleaning technology! Actually, self-cleaning using vibrations was introduced ten years earlier still, by Olympus, in the E-1.

The eureka moment came from a photographer in the group. For years now, digital cameras have had self-cleaning sensors. This is achieved by using tiny electrical motors to vibrate the sensor. The technology is pretty effective – or at least it drastically reduces the need to clean manually with special liquids and swabs.

The breakthrough thought was this: what if we could do the same thing with a whole worktop? What if dust and smears – even stains – could be freed from the stone surface by means of vibration? If we could apply vibrations of both the right frequency and power, could we have found the holy grail of the self-cleaning worktop?

It would be untrue to say that turning that brilliant idea into something really practical has been easy. The energy required to clean whole worktops is extraordinary – and applying that energy in just the right way without any adverse effects elsewhere in the building is a challenge. Early experiments saw many setbacks with unwanted breakages not only to the worktops themselves but to other, quite unconnected elements of our worktop laboratory – we lost 53 coffee mugs, one pair of glasses, two desktop computers and a small Audi, though on a positive note the perennial blockage in the AG loos seems to have cleared, once and for all.

Certainly our biggest disappointment was damage to our Director’s lovely Guildford home during our first fully scaled-up run. (pictured at right here.) At the time we came close to giving up, but the lure of the self-cleaning worktop proved too much, and we pressed on after a few difficult conversations. And bit by bit, we began to get it right…

Lovely detached home in central Guildford

After so many false starts, dead ends and collapsed homes, self-cleaning worktops are no longer a pipe-dream but a reality. We are proud to have worked through the experimental phase and can now offer installation of self-cleaning modules for your solid stone worktops at a very affordable price! Cost is reasonable, though obviously significant. Contact us today to get your quote! 

Our first practical worktop Vibratory Self-Cleaning (VSC) unit – suitable for standard depth worktops. We are not allowed to show you what’s inside!

Once attached beneath the worktop and wired in (via hole visible here) this box can clean a countertop run at up to 2000mm length. Larger boxes are need for VSC on islands and big peninsulars. 

One of our technicians wiring the vibration boxes into the main junction board of a customer’s home

Discreet and practical – electrical gear for VSC installed on the exterior wall of a kitchen in Caterham, Surrey

The extraordinary beauty of a totally self-cleaning worktop

As with almost anything else, there are a few cautions that customers should note:

1. Although lighter coloured natural stones can have this technology applied, we still recommend that your granite worktops are resealed annually
2. Natural stone and quartz are ideally suited for Vibratory Self-Cleaning, but this technology is NOT suitable for Dekton and some other ceramics and sintered particle materials
3. Do not sit on the worktops during the VSC cycle. Unless you want to.
4. It may be worth noting the date this article was posted.

Dekton Trillium – stunning, but not suitable for self-cleaning technology

We are Affordable Granite – always in the forefront of worktop technology and entertainment!