Anyone use this company? I'm interested in how the purchase and fabrication experience was. I am getting quotes in excess of $100 per square foot for pretty inexpensive granite (i.e. $16-20/sf).
I have looked at the pre-formed slabs and I think that if the tools are not too expensive to make a good cut and polish, I'd like to try it myself.
Cheers!
the costs from this site are pretty equal to that i can get fab'ed in a local place. usually a local place will also place them and guarantee that it'll match and look correct too for the same price.
the tooling to do the edge polishing would start you somewhere around $1k. makita makes a good hand wet saw. you'd need diamond pads of a bunch of different grits used in a center feed wet grinder. the pads wear out and cost a bundle too.
Have you seen the automated stuff they have to fabricate countertops? It looks like the machines they use at automobile manufacturing plants. Probably in the $200,000+ range. If you tried to use hand tools (which I guess that web site sells)... one mistake and it's all over. I did a counter with marble tiles - even that was a pain in the neck and it's a lot easier to shape than granite.
If the counterop is very simple, and you don't mind having several gratuitous seams, I suppose you could do it yourself. But at that point, you might as well just use tiles which are only 10 bucks a square foot and if you screw up while cutting,, you only broke one tile.
I'd leave granite slab cutting to the professionals... the reason they charge 80 bucks a foot to cut is because they had to buy a quarter million dollar machine to do it.
Thanks for the quick feedback.
I have 2 bids so far. 1st is from local granite place, "hungry" for business, about 1 year old, 2nd from DIY granite.
The turnkey bid is $8,200.00.
DIY granite for materials & tools/jigs (including polished cutout for undermount sink is $1,900.
Well that's a big difference. Will the DIY bid result in the same final appearance as the other bid, as far as seams go, quality of workmanship? If you screw something up, you'll need to live with it or buy another piece of granite. How important are those things to you?
$8,200 seems like a lot - exactly how big is this counter?
that is an amazing difference. granted there is some labor cost in installing it onto your cabinets. it is heavy and hard to manipulate, and also if you damage it or it is damaged in shipping, who pays? how much work are you going to have to do to install it? can you live with your installation?
you might talk to some custom people (the workers directly) to see if any of them do installations, and how much that would be if you provided your own slabs.
the only thing i don't like about ordering this over the internet: i like to go to the stone yard and pick out my slab myself, and tell them which pieces to use of that slab for which counters. you don't get that ordering over the internet.
Exactly. We picked out "Blue Sapphire" for our counters and although three different lots had the same name, they all looked pretty different. I would not want to pick a granite without picking the exact slabs I was paying for.
JennP.
To answer (most?) of the questions...
The counter is about 61 square feet with about 14 sf of backsplash (going to the bottom of the cabinets. Since the main counter is U shaped, there will be 2 seams to cut. DIY Graniote says they have a jig to assure straight cuts. They are also located about an hour's drive, so going over to select slabs and geta feel for the place is no big deal.
I understand that this is labor intensive, and I am not trying to deprive anyone from an honest day's wages. Rather, I think tha right now granite (and other stone or engineered stone) counters are all the rage, so they are priced at a premium.
I also think that most do it yourselfers cringe when they think about the prospect of cutting rocks to fit to a 16th or 32nd tolerance. I feel comfortable to do the installation and fabrication myself. Plus, If I goof a cut and have to purchae more, the most expensive slab on my list is $545. I can really screw up before I have gone through the $6,000 difference.
Quite frankly, for $8,000 the cost/value ratio craters. For $2,000 it looks pretty good. Especially compared to the $800 estimate to set the tile that I buy after I take out the existing counters andf do the cement board too.
Thanks for the info. I would still really like to hear from someone who has done it themselves.
Please, follow up here when you've finished the job, I'm probably not the only person interested to hear how it goes!
Good luck - JSH
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