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What is the standard if a Stone Fabricator damages a slab and they can't find a matching replacement?
QUESTION
What is the industry standard if a fabricator breaks a large island of Taj Mahal quartzite and a slab in the same block and coloring are no longer available to match the perimeter of the kitchen which was also damaged with 5 separate cracks along with chips in the top of that piece ? Slab suppliers are saying the block and coloring of mine are rare. What is the industry standard on decorative edges, mine weave in and out and in spots the straight edge has broken off? Do you have an expert in Minnesota?ANSWER
ANSWER - It isn't clear from your description exactly what the conditions are, but generally speaking, if you have a countertop that is book-matched or if the veining is contiguous, and one of the slabs were damaged and couldn't be repaired, and the fabricator can't find a matching slab, then he should replace the entire countertop. The replacement won't look exactly like the original, but it should be consistent with the range of the type stone.If you have chips or cracks in the stone countertop that was not caused by abusive use, then they should be repaired or replaced.
Regarding the edges of the stone, depending on the profile made on the edge, in general the edge should be consistent and not broken. The question is what caused it to break?
We do have inspectors in Minnesota. So if it is practical for you, you can hire www.CTaSC.com to perform an inspection and write a report, but it will likely cost $3,000 or more, so it may or may not be practical in your case.
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We purchased 3 slabs (from same stone) of Taj Mahal to be used as 1) countertops (butler pantry, kitchen countertops, small bar countertop); 2) island. These areas all reside w/i the same open area. The fabricator workers dropped the island piece. Fabricator owner says they will only replace the island slab and at the value we purchased the broken slab at. Our stone search has shown us how different Taj Mahal slabs can be when taken from different stones. Is this a common fabricator practice when mulitple slabs are involved? We now face the challenge of finding one replacement slab that will probably not exactly match the smaller surrounding slabs. Our slabs are leathered as well and the island slab was 120+ inches , so we know those two aspects will limit our search. Thank you.
Taj Mahal is a popular granite. Natural stone does inherently have variation. According to industry standards, as long as the fabricator can replace the island piece within the range of the other pieces it is considered acceptable. It doesn’t have to exactly match the piece that broke.
Our fabricator completely botched our project. We bought a quad-matched set of marble (for our island, countertops, and backsplash) and they did not make miter cut edges for our countertops–they also lied and said that we never discussed that (it’s on our invoice). They also cracked a stone adjacent to the sink because the installers wedged shims under a weak point.
After telling them that I reported them to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division and the BBB, they’ve changed their story from “you never discussed that and there’s not enough stone anyway” to “we’re sorry that there was a misunderstanding between you and our employee. We have enough stone to for the miter edges”–they have ignored my statements concerning the damaged stone. The problem is that the miter edges (for the faux 2in thick look) were not cut from the adjacent sections of stone, so, it looks terrible.
Is it not their responsibility to make this right (in this case, they’ll need to purchase a bookmatched pair of stones)?
The Natural Stone Institute does say that repairs can be made as long as long as it doesn’t detract from the intended appearance.
Many of the standards for workmanship are subjective and it requires an stone expert to inspect, evaluate and to provide an opinion on whether what was done was considered to be within the standard of care or not. An opinion can’t be made without seeing and evaluating all of the facts.