Bob:
Good morning. We are here this morning to talk about granite countertops sealing Little Rock as it is used in home construction. Granite has been used for years and years in home construction because of how incredibly tough and hard of a surface it is. Just a little bit of background on granite. It’s considered a coarse grained igneous rock, and it’s made up of alkali feldspar and plagioclase. Plagioclase forms when Magna has a high content of, some different oxides and solidifies underground. It’s found in the earth continental crust where there’s different kinds of igneous intrusions up under there. And so, it’s basically mined out of the ground and cut to be used in our home. And Ryan has a couple of things that you want to think about if you’re considering, putting granite into your, into your home about coming to the advantages and a few of the drawbacks of granite. Yeah.
Ryan:
There’s, there’s some plus and minuses with granite countertops sealing Little Rock. It’s a beautiful stone. It’s very dense and hard. It’s a little bit stronger than other types of stone. It’s quite a bit stronger than the marbles. It’s great for flooring and for countertops it has such a rich beauty that a few other countertop materials can match. It’s a natural product with a timeless appeal Granite countertops take a high quality kitchen to the next level visually and often become the centerpiece of the room with more than 20 different shades of granite to work with. You’ll find that perfect granite that blends with your kitchen cabinets, flooring and different wall colors.
Bob:
One of the services that we offer when you got the granite countertops sealing Little Rock in your house is to come in and seal it. The granite is really hard too, like Ryan said harder than the marbles we’ve worked with. So we don’t really do a lot of polishing per se. Although you can do some polishing with the with the granite yeah. On your, your softer granites. So we’ve mostly come in and do a clean and seal, which is a good idea because granite being a natural rock is porous, even though it’s very hard. And so things like the chicken juices things that you don’t want cross-contamination in your food with can be prevented by sealing your countertop.
Ryan:
Yep. Some granite countertops, you can go 10 years without being sealed, but most of the countertops can be, they need to be resealed on a yearly basis when this is overlooked. It won’t take long for granite countertops to begin to show signs of staining,
Bob:
You know, and one of the concerns that we’ve heard about over the years and actually became a major topic for a while was that there’s radiation that’s comes out of granite countertops. And actually that is true. According to the Wikipedia site, potassium 40 is one of the radioactive isotopes that comes out of granite. And then there’s also some granites can have other large plutons that can be given off from different granites. But really the concentration is extremely small. And it’s not something that is hazardous to people. I mean, granite has been used for centuries in homes, way back into ancient Greece because of its durability and because of its beauty. So obviously if it was a very, very dangerous stone to have around, people would not want.
Ryan:
Yeah. And it’s great in the kitchen. It’s a super hard substance. It’s not susceptible to scratches while it’s not ideal to work on because it will dull your knives and stuff. So you still want to use cutting boards and whatnot. Cause it’s still a strong stone, but it’s, scratchable granite heat resistant too. So if you use it near range of cooktop, it’s ideal when you have to set a hot pan or, or something like that, granite cools fast, it can take the heat without being damaged or weakened. The only thing is stuff that’s stones, as hard as granite, they can be very resistant to stains and they won’t absorb liquids for say if they’re sealed properly, but being as strong as they are also means that if you drop something heavy on it, it will crack or chip.
Bob:
One of the things that, that I personally love about granite countertops sealing Little Rock, and if you’re looking here, we have a website here where we’re looking at right now (Samples Of Granite – ZapMeta) is just the variety of colors and different textures designs. Just different looks that granite can have. You’ve got, we’ve got a picture in front of us here. It shows the whole spectrum from this really great dark granite with some light highlights to an almost exact opposite of it, where it’s a lighter colored, Barbra, maybe a whitish gray with some black highlights in it. And then there’s even others that are just really neat earth tones that have different varying levels of red and your earth tones and grays and black. And so there’s really you know, when you’re coming to decorating your home, there’s a lot of options for you in terms of color
Ryan:
That also speaking of colors, the color spectrum of it is also what how they choose to pricing per granite. More of your speckled, if you will stones, they push that into a builders grade market. And then that generally starts in the 25 to $30 square foot. Then when you get into the, the granite that has the high concentration of quartz and stuff like that, and it, with the large veining, you can get up into the 120 a square foot for those countertops. So there is a, a vast price difference in the different granites.
Bob:
Hmm. And that’s the real important reason that you need our services for maintenance investment in stone, not just granite countertops sealing Little Rock for any of your natural stones, your limestone your marbles. They are expensive because they’re so unique and they’re durable, but they are not maintenance free. They require regular annual maintenance in many cases. So protect that huge investment you have in a shower, a countertop or flooring in your house where you’ve spent and made a great investment, whether you got it because you bought the house or because you had, it installed either way, you paid for that great flooring or that great shower and our maintenance services are just a small fraction of what it costs to have to tear that out and replace it.
Ryan:
Yeah. The maintenance wise on the granite countertops, you’re usually around $600 for clean and seal on the bigger countertops. I can’t think of one off hand that we’ve went in. That was just so massive. We had to charge more it’s we use we generally typically come in and we clean it with we like to use an acetone, which I do not suggest that the normal homeowner use we clean it with an acetone that we come back with our sealers, that we they’re professional sealers that are very, very expensive, but they have a one-year warranty against stains and stuff with the sealers we use.
Bob:
Yeah. Because the stain actually penetrates what’s referred to as a penetrating sealer, they aren’t a sealer that just sits on the top. It’s a penetrating sealer that goes down into the actual surface of the rock and seals from not just on top, but also across the actual surface of the rock, which gives you that great protection that keeps the stains and different issues that you have keeps them cleaner for up to a year after we complete the service,
Ryan:
There’s small micro microscopic, if you will, a Silicon particles in the sealer and they go in and they fill all the voids in the stone, not all the voids, the small voids, the little crevices it gets in there and builds up. And then we wipe off the residue off the top before it hazes. And that’s what seals your countertop is. We’re actually filling the voids. So if you’ve got
Bob:
Any kind of natural stone in your house, as I said, not just your granites, but really your, your softer stones, or it’s just as important, if not more critical to have regular service on them as well. Because your, your limestones different kinds of marbles are actually little softer and can be scratched. And that allows dirt and other contaminants to penetrate into the stone and can cause damage over time that even with our diamond restoration, we’re not able to completely fix another issue that we’ve seen with a natural stone. Two is a deferred maintenance on it actually is allowed. In one case I can think of, for sure, has allowed a mold and mildew to penetrate so deeply into the stone that we had no way of getting it out short of, just completely destroying the stone shower itself
Ryan:
And use a strong acid on it.
Bob:
Regular maintenance is critical to any kind of stone. And even though we focused on granite countertops sealing Little Rock in this article here cause it’s a nice, tough, durable stone any kind of stone needs, regular maintenance in order to protect that huge investment that you’ve made.