Worktops
Three materials. One of them is right for your kitchen.
181 surfaces across quartz, granite and sintered stone. Here is how they genuinely differ (heat, staining, sealing, sunlight and price) and where each one is the wrong answer.
Choosing
None of the three is best at everything
Anyone who tells you one material wins outright is selling the one they have most of. Each of these gives something up, and the right choice depends on which compromise you can live with.
The useful way to decide is not to ask which is best. It is to ask three questions about your kitchen and let the answers rule things out. Does direct sunlight hit the worktop? Will you actually maintain it? And how hard is the room used? A couple who cook at weekends and a family of five with teenagers are not buying the same thing.
Once two of those are answered, there is usually only one sensible material left, and the rest of the decision is colour. That is the part that should take the time.
Start here
Three questions that settle it
- Does the sun land on it?
- Direct sunlight for hours a day rules quartz out. Granite and sintered stone are both UV stable.
- Will you re-seal it?
- Granite needs sealing topped up over its life. Quartz and sintered stone never do. Be honest with yourself here.
- How hard is the kitchen used?
- Heavy use with hot pans landing anywhere points at granite or sintered. Quartz wants a trivet and a chopping board.
Still stuck? Send us the kitchen and we will tell you which of the three we would fit in it, and why. It costs nothing and we are not paid more for one over another.
The three materials
Quartz, granite and sintered stone
181 surfaces in total. Every one of them is a slab we can template, cut and fit ourselves.
Side by side
The comparison nobody puts on a showroom wall
Including the parts that lose sales. Price bands are supply only and come straight from our current catalogue.
Scroll the table sideways to compare
| Quartz | Granite | Dekton & sintered | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it actually is | Engineered stone, mostly ground quartz held in a resin binder | Natural rock, quarried and polished. No binder, no pigment | Sintered mineral powder, compacted under extreme pressure and heat |
| Heat off the hob | Weakest of the three. The resin scorches, so always use a trivet | Excellent. A hot pan will not mark it | Excellent. Nothing in it can scorch |
| Scratching | Hard, but use a board: knives will dull the polish over time | Hard. Most kitchen knives will not touch it | Hardest of the three, and the most forgiving day to day |
| Staining | Non-porous. Wine, oil and turmeric wipe off | Porous to varying degrees. Oil and wine will mark unsealed stone | Effectively zero porosity. Nothing soaks in |
| Sealing | None, ever | Sealed on installation, then topped up periodically | None, ever |
| Sunlight & outdoors | Not suitable. The resin yellows under UV, and that includes a bright south-facing window | Fine. It has been outside for a few million years already | Fine. UV stable, which is why it is used for outdoor kitchens and cladding |
| Chipping | Chips at corners and cut-outs if hit, but repairs are usually invisible | Chips at corners if hit hard. Repairable | The one real weakness: thin edges and unsupported overhangs are vulnerable |
| Colour consistency | Predictable. What you see in the sample is what arrives | Every slab differs. The sample shows the stone, not your slab | Predictable, with large-format patterns that can be book-matched |
| Supply price band | From £130/m², most between £150 and £280 | From £121/m², most between £148 and £250 | From £110/m², most between £250 and £300 |
Supply price is the slab only. Fabrication, edge profiles, cut-outs, delivery and installation are quoted on top and itemised, so you can see what each decision costs before you make it.
Honest limits
Where each material is the wrong answer
Every worktop we have ever had to go back to was specified into a job it was not built for. These are the three that come up most.
Quartz in the sun
The resin that holds quartz together is not UV stable. In a conservatory, an outdoor kitchen, or a run under a large south-facing window, it will yellow, and it will yellow unevenly where a bowl or a board has been sitting. Manufacturers exclude it from their warranties for exactly this reason. If sunlight lands on the worktop for hours a day, we will steer you to sintered stone or granite instead.
Granite if you will not maintain it
Granite is porous. How porous depends on the stone: some of the dense blacks barely absorb anything, some of the lighter, more crystalline slabs drink oil. We seal it on installation, but it is not a one-off job: it needs redoing periodically, and how often depends on the slab and how hard you use it. If you know you will never think about it again, quartz or sintered stone is the honest answer.
Sintered stone on a delicate edge
Sintered slabs are extremely hard, and hard means brittle. A dropped pan on a thin, unsupported edge, or a knock on an exposed corner, can chip it, and because the pattern often runs through only part of the body, a chip can show a different colour underneath. It is fabricated carefully, corners are eased, and overhangs are supported. But if your kitchen is genuinely rough on its worktops, quartz is easier to repair.
Thickness & edges
Thickness is a look, not a strength rating
A thicker worktop is not a stronger one. What holds a run of stone together is the substrate under it and where the joins fall, both of which are our problem, not yours.
Most kitchens are choosing between a slim profile and a chunkier one, and either can be achieved from the same slab. A mitred edge takes the slab, cuts the edge at 45 degrees and folds it down, so a thin worktop reads as a deep one with the pattern running unbroken around the corner. It costs more because it is more work, and on a heavily veined slab it is the only way to stop the pattern stopping dead at the edge.
We do not publish a thickness list here, because what is stocked varies by colour and changes over time. When you pick a colour we confirm the thicknesses available in that specific slab, in writing, before you commit to anything.
Joins
Where a run is longer than a slab, there is a join. We place it where it is least visible rather than where it is quickest to cut, and a finished join is typically 2–3mm.
Cut-outs
Hobs, sinks, taps and sockets are all cut in the workshop from your template, then dry-fitted before delivery. Every one of them is itemised on your quote.
Upstands & splashbacks
Cut from the same batch as the worktop so the colour matches under your lights. Different batches of the same colour do not always agree.
Samples
A screen cannot show you a stone. Samples are free, they arrive by post, and looking at one in your own kitchen at night is worth more than any photograph.
Where to next
Narrow it down
Next step
Tell us the kitchen, and we will tell you the material
Plans, a sketch or photos with rough measurements is enough. You get an indicative range back the same day, then a fixed written quote once we have templated.
Fitted 3–7 working days from template, backed by a 25-year material warranty and a 5-year workmanship guarantee.
Prefer to talk it through? +44 7479 194398