Countertops for Home or Office Or Commercial Use
U.S. Style Cabinet, Where You Go When You Want it Done Right
Solid Surface is the Best Possible Countertop Material, Prices Start at 2395 pesos per linear foot
Solid surface is sometimes called artificial granite, Corian, or synthetic granite. It is made of acrylic plastic and a mineral called ATH which is made from bauxite. The result is a very hard but flexible countertop surface that is fire resistant, easily repaired, and scratches are easily sanded out.
The sheets of material start out at 30″ wide x 118″ long but they can be seamed nearly invisibly with the right tools and procedures and the resulting joint backed up with a 4″ wide seam block is extremely strong. Generally seams less than 48″ can be made nearly perfectly with seams invisible from a meter away. They are perfectly smooth to the point that you cannot use your hand to locate a seam, and they will not come apart.
There is one caveat on seams; the really good adhesives available in most of the world are not available in the Philippines and extremely difficult to import as they are solvent filled products. The available glue is usable but it cures slowly and might someday discolor a small amount. The actual glue seam is very small, less than a few thousandths of an inch across, so should a seam discolor it will appear as a very faint line. It won’t break or crack.
Yet a granite top seam is going to be felt with the hand, seen from across the room in most cases, and they are prone to separating due to the various minerals that compose granite not having the same expansion rate as the epoxies used to glue the granite seams. And these seams will discolor as well, generally yellowing as they age due to UV inhibitors being used in insufficient quantities in the epoxy.
Solid Surface is the most durable countertop available and reasonably priced. It will not stain or crack like granite countertops do, the seams will not come apart, and solid surface is very easily repaired should it ever get damaged. Granite is porous and difficult to keep clean and sanitary and bacteria will colonize the interior of the granite so it is too dangerous to prepare food on.
.Solid Surface has a NSF 51 rating, the National Sanitation Foundation rates most solid surface as so sanitary that you can actually use the material to prepare food and serve that food to people with complete safety. Another huge problem with granite is all the pretty colors in granite are almost all toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium, arsenic, and chromium. Radioactive elements like uranium and all of its decay elements are usually present. Solid surface has zero toxins or heavy metals.
One really nice feature of solid surface is that it is easily repaired as long as you have some of the original material left over for repair stock. A damaged top can have something like a scratch simply sanded out or the top can be removed and a bad part removed and seamed back together with a very minimal seam showing. If you have some scrap left over from building the top save it somewhere safe as the scrap can be cut up into the right size strip of material, glued together, and used to extend the repairs section with very good results. Even if a corner gets broken off you can usually trim off the broken edge and glue some material back in place and grind it down to where it looks like it was never broken.
Ends that stop at a wall can be left unfinished but ends next to stoves or refrigerators or on an end that is visible need to be built up with the thicker edge and if there is enough left over sometimes a short backsplash can be made.
We try to design kitchens around these 30″ x 118″ sheet sizes to prevent waste. Waste sometimes is impossible to avoid and your job might be of a size that forces the purchase of an extra sheet to complete the entire countertop. In those cases if more than half of the sheet remains the customer will get a material credit for the un used material and of course no labor is charged for that portion of the sheet.
Solid surface is a lot like paint. If you run out of paint and head back to the paint store to have more mixed it might not be a perfect match. Any scrap solid surface usually cannot be used for the next job with that color as the shading or color might not be perfect. If there is a small countertop that can be made out of the surplus material, one that isn’t touching any of the new material, sometimes it works. For that reason solid surface jobs can have a bit of waste or extra material charges. But on the other hand the ability to seam the material together can sometimes mean taking the scrap out of the kitchen sink hole and using it to complete a job that is tight on materials.
Sinks are easily installed in solid surface. The integrated solid surface sinks don’t appear to be available in the Philippines so drop in stainless steel sinks are the way to go. Under mounts can be done but you have to allow the countertop to protrude over the sink so that the silicone caulk is hidden under the rim. Silicone molds quickly and becomes quite ugly. It is difficult to re silicone the seam when it needs it so we recommend the drop in sinks.
The workers at U.S. Style Cabinet company were trained in solid surface work by their previous employer out at Clark. The trainer is a factory trained master fabricator with decades of experience.
In the United States the solid surface has ten and even fifteen year factory warranties but rarely does the material itself fail. What fails is worker not following the strict fabrication rules that the material companies require in order to validate the long warranties.
Which is why being trained by a factory trained fabricator is so important and why the workers never violate fabrication rules for any reason. The rules generally have to do with dealing with any expansion and contraction of the material as it does expand about 1/8″ per 12′ of material. Hardly a problem in a home kitchen. Other rules deal with the support under the countertop to ensure the material is solidly supported.
Square inside corners are not allowed, a radius about the size of a soda can is needed in inside corners and seams are not allowed in sink holes, in cooktop holes or directly in the corner of an L shaped countertop. The seam can be at least two inches away from the inside corner if needed. Seams shouldn’t be placed over dishwashers as modern dishwashers put out a lot of heat and steam.
While it is possible to polish solid surface up to a brilliant sheen it is not a good idea. A satin or matte finish is better, done by sanding the surface and edges with finer grits of sandpaper all the way up to at least 240 grit, then completing the polish job with a grey or white scotchbrite pad used wet. And this is one of the wonders of a solid surface top; any damage can be simply sanded off and the top is like new again. With the proper tools and bits cone shaped tapered plugs can be made and tapered holes routered into a broken top to repair cracks, even fill in holes in the countertop. And if a broken countertop can be removed and take back to the shop nearly any damage can be repaired. For this reason a small section of material is left with the completed countertop and reserved for any future repair.
The colors on this web page are just one company that provides solid surface sheets in the Philippines. We like this company because they deliver from Manila weekly and that keeps the prices of the materials down and that keeps the price of the completed job down. Later on we will branch out into more available colors but most people can find something that works with these colors.
There are some additional colors available that start at 2774 pesos per linear foot. They are more expensive because they have what is called movement, swirls and patterns that resemble natural marble. Those take some care and planning to fabricate, they will have a “grain” or general direction of the flow of the pattern and you cannot turn a scrap section 90 degrees and seam it onto another sheet to lengthen the sheet. The sheets can be glued together side by side but finding a quality straight edge to machine long seams might be impossible in the Philippines so the quality of the seams on long tops might not be as perfect as the short seams usually used.
Solid surface is easy to clean; use anything except strong solvents like lacquer thinner, oven cleaners, or drain cleaners. If you use something that is a strong acid or very alkaline like lye drain cleaner the surface would need re-polishing.
Solid surface is not intended to be walked on, neither is a granite top for that matter, both might crack if the top wasn’t perfectly supported or if a man’s weight was concentrated in the wrong spot. Yes, it could be repaired if it was cracked but it is best to simply warn any workers or maids not to stand on the countertop or walk on it.
Solid surface can be placed in an oven up to 450 degrees of heat and bent like a blade of grass but high temperatures tend to change the color slightly and when solid surface is heated it gives off water molecules which cause a white haze on the surface that would need sanded down to repair. For this reason we do not recommend you put hot pots off the cooktop or out of the oven directly on solid surface, use a dish towel, a magazine, or a hot pad under the pot. Granite will also break or crack under this kind of heat too, only soapstone can take that kind of heat with no danger of cracking.
