Top - Timo from Biefbi - a hi gloss, any colour, handleless range with concave and convex curves, from Italy. Click on picture
Bottom - Burbidge Arundel Natural Oak. Click on picture
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GreyGreen will help you choose a worktop to suite your taste, budget and design aspirations. We oversee the selection of a manufacturer, along with the templating and installation of the fabricated worktop.
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There are six broad categories of worktop material.
Laminate
Laminate is the perfect alternative to acrylic based, granite and stone worktops at a fraction of the price. The quality of the print has increased markedly and, along with the new embossed finishes, it is really difficult, with some manufacturer’s offerings, to tell the difference between the real article. See DuraPal, Getalit, Formica.
There is comprehensive selection of surface designs, woods, stone etc, offering opportunities from the most modern applications to the more traditional.
Most problems occur when the worktop is exposed to prolonged contact with water. This will ‘blow’ (swell) the chipboard substrate. It will never return to its original state. When installing, all cut edges must be sealed to stop the ingress of water/damp. When joining, consider joining two pieces using a ‘Mason’s Mitre’ which is a routed and clamped joint that is a nearly imperceptible. When cutting shapes that need the cut edge to be laminated with matching material, bear in mind that it is very difficult to create a satisfactory transition from the cut edge to the existing post formed edge (with rounded corners) when the angle is less than 45 degrees. It gets progressively more difficult the lower the angle.
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The graining, texture and warmth of wood is hard to beat. We have access to a selection of exotic woods that display wild and interesting graining in contrasting and muted colours. These will greatly enhance your kitchen giving you a lasting pleasure.
Some woods are more porous than others and will stain easily. More densely grained woods resist staining. All woods need a care regime, which will entail occasional oiling, which will stop it shrinking and cracking, and improve its resistance to staining. Do not leave stain-inducing liquids (red wine etc) in contact with wood for prolonged periods of time. It is not recommend that you use wood in conjunction with a butler sink where the draining board is an integral part of the worktop. The draining area, with its constant exposure to water, will eventually turn black and rot if it is not lavished with care.
Easy to work and create interesting shapes, it is priced between the laminate worktop and the granite. Some woods can be expensive such as, the almost black, Wenge and the distinctively grained Zabrano.
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Glass worktops, along with glass splash backs, are a recent introduction into the worktop market. They are non porous, stain proof and hygienic. The surface is not scratch proof but it is very resistant to scratches.
The standard offering of a 6-15mm thick clear glass, with a painted coating on the bottom of the glass, has one major drawback. For light and medium tone colours any scratch on the top of the worktop will cast an even bigger scratch ‘shadow’ on the bottom colour. This will not be so obvious on darker tone colours. This is not a problem with sheets of solid opaque colours, ie, the glass is opaque all the way through and therefore there will be no scratch shadows.
There are some very exciting glass worktops that feature recycled glass chips or plastic waste.
For the manufacturer GLASSeco, for example, you choose the colour and the finish; what you would like to be added in; you tell them how thick you want your worktop; what the dimensions are; they can polish the edges; add drainer grooves; shape the corners; set-in lights and much, much more. But because each glass worktop is different they can't tell you what it will cost. They claim it doesn't cost the earth and it doesn't damage the earth either.
The other interesting innovation is the acrylic solid surface with recycled glass chips
Recycled Glass Innovation (Bottle Alley Glass)
Resilica http://www.resilica.com/about/
Eluna http://www.eluna.uk.com/
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There are two types of solid surface, a polyester base, and an acrylic based material. Both use a alumina trihydrate
Polyester allows for greater depth of color, as well as less visible scratch marks, but its lack of ATH filler makes it more brittle.
Corian, a popular brand, for example, is composed of acrylic polymer.
With its balance of beauty and performance, Acrylic solid surface
lends itself to imaginative uses, innovative designs and enduring applications. If you can imagine it, you can probably create it with Acrylic solid surface. Available in over hundreds of colours, It can be carved, routed or worked like wood, moulded, thermoformed or inlayed… the design options are almost limitless.
People like its integral bowls and the curves that that blend the worksurface to the upstand. Often more expensive that a granite worktop
Brands include Corian, Meganite, LG HI-MACS, Marlan, Samsung's Staron
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Quartz is found in the ground, in sand or rocks and in almost every geological location around the world. It is one of the most varied minerals occurring in different types, colours and forms. This versatility gives worktops an individual and unique appearance. When this beautiful natural resource is professional processed with a stain resistant binding polymer the result is a versatile material that possesses strength and durability with a hardwearing, non-porous, chemical and scratch resistant surface.
Worked like stone it costs the same as a medium to low priced Granite. Unlike granite it has a very evenly flecked and coloured surface. Favored by architects for its industrial appearance
Brands include Apollo, Zodiaq, CIMSTONE, Compac, Silestone, Caesarstone
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Granite is mined all over the world and comes in an endless variety of colour and patterning. It is an exciting and living material with no two slabs exactly alike.
They do come in varying degrees of porosity which render some unsuitable for kitchen worktops as they stain easily. The pores absorb spilt liquid like a sponge and it is difficult to extract ‘the stain’ which is the reason most marbles are also unsuited to worktops but make beautiful cladding materials. A visit to a good stockist of granites can be a heart stopping experience – the granites are so beautiful. Choose your own particular slab for a lasting joy.
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