SFA

Hello I am a small fabricator in Southern Alabama. ~80% of my work is granite. I am interested in adding 1-2 lines of Quartz, preferably one of the premium brands.

I am familiar with Camrbia, Caesarstone, Silestone & Hanstone. What do you guys like cutting? Do you have any 2017 price guides or price lists I can look at? Just MSRP pricing of course.

What do you see as pros/cons with some of the different brands? Anyone have experience with any Chinese quartz? I certainly have more trust for the premium brands, but Chinese Quartz does seem to have come a long way. The warranties that come with the premium brands dont seem to be a huge selling point once a top is delivered/installed assuming the customer is initially satisfied.


Thank you very much for your time!

-TC/Ed

We use LG for most of our quartz. The slabs are made in Georgia, which is nice for the US economy.

We offer Silestone, Caesarstone and Pental.
Pricing will vary in relation to how much you buy.
Don't trust any warranty, especially from Cambria.
Trust your sales rep, that is where the rubber meets the road.

We carry several quartz brands. We like Hanstone for low prices and excellent service. LG Viatera has been growing rapidly due to colors with movement much like Cambria and good service. There are enough quartz suppliers out there now that as a fabricator you no longer have to

I hear Viatera is making dents in Cambria's market share which is welcome news.

We mostly use Caesarstone, LG and silestone. We have tried MSI Q stone briefly and it is noting but absolute shit. Lg and caesarstone lately have been the best. The biggest problem is inventory. you sell it, they dont have it. In Toronto we can only get each brand from one supplier. Im sure thats the same everywhere but with stone we can source at a different supplier. I wish that we didnt have to fabricate quartz. Its hard to sell a product that you do not believe in. We tell all customers the worst case scenario and for some reason they still pick quartz.

We like HanStone. I think Dave brought up an excellent point. We used to actively sell Silestone but ran into issues with Cosentino that at the time didn't warrant the headache of dealing with them. Your sales rep/distributor relationship will probably be what sways your​ final offerings. We still fab a couple Silestone jobs a year but it's only when we can't get the specs changed.

LG Viatera can basically sell itself when a client hears that it is produced locally, folks love that. They make an excellent product and has great customer service. Their color selection also covers a pretty board spectrum and some of their colors are pretty unique and not easily replaced by a competitor. Solid price point, nice stand, good size samples

Hanstone is also great. Their 6 lower priced colors are extremely popular for us. Service and product are on par with LG. Their marble (most popular still right now) looking selection is not quite as pretty as the competition. We do sell a lot of their more solid color offerings. We had a small surface issue on a Hanstone job about a year ago and their customer service was fantastic! They handled the customer and the whole ordeal very well.

Cosmos and MSI Q will be cheaper, you will ultimately have some issues such as; slabs not matching when you have seams spanning over 6 slabs, scratches and surfaces damage you cannot repair and can rarely work around to get a good yield. Their products are very popular due to the price point though, just price them safe and give yourself enough time.

The above problems can also occur with the big names. Inspect slabs! Check serial numbers religiously on slabs.

There are A LOT of quartz companies. Just contact some and see how they treat you. Some of them respond better to larger fabrication shops and some give excellent service to us smaller guys.

Top_Crafter:

I'd never seen quartz book matched until I went to Coverings last month. I don't know of any quality issues one way or the other, but you've got to give the Chinese props for this:

We carry Cambria, Zodiaq and Q from MSI.

I'd drop Cambria if we could (customers ask for it and we have builders that won't drop it). They don't back their product but charge a premium and tell everyone they are the premiere quartz manufacturer. There's color variance from one slab to another, so beware if you're putting a seam. Once you cut it, they won't take it back.

Zodiaq is great. Nice color selection and they've added some nice colors with movement. They are the most consistent quality that we've used and they back up their product.

Q has been good to us. It's cheap and we don't offer it retail but we have some builders that want cheaper alternatives. If we have an issue with a slab, they send another one that day. It has been a tad more problematic than Zodiaq, but no more of a hassle than Cambria. The difference is they are half the price and will stand behind their product.

Kowboy wrote: ↑

Fri May 12, 2017 10:00 am

Top_Crafter:

I'd never seen quartz book matched until I went to Coverings last month. I don't know of any quality issues one way or the other, but you've got to give the Chinese props for this:

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Hey No Picture Taking! Didn't You Read The Rules

Joe:

I attended the show on a press pass. They like it when we take pictures and write about their stuff.

On the other hand, I turned in a "suitcaser" to security. That's when a "vendor" doesn't pay rent to the show and runs around with his catalog prospecting for clients. They were very interested in him.

Keep in mind, we are not volume. 8 homes a week is what we have right now. Maybe 40% overall during a year is quartz. This is our opinion as a team:

Silestone - Good distribution system, if your rep is good they will take care of you. Slabs have always been good. Just wish there was not a huge price drop when you "sign builders up" for their programs. Im not thrilled they also have direct involvement with fabrication of tops. Not to mention that Home Depot has the market dominated for cheaper pricing.

Cambria - We have always had good experience with our NC based distributor. Slabs do cost a lot more but we tell customers that. The looks are great. I do see that market share changing as others develop new looks.

Caesarstone - Great for marbled styles of quartz. Pricing is not low however. More mid-to-high for us. They do have some incentive programs to sell more.

Vicostone - Large selection at lower costs. The marbled stones do come at a premium, but if a builder wants a cheap white we can get it from them using this brand.

LG Viatera - Seems like many of our local vendors have purchased bundles to get lower pricing. I have never seen the sales rep come around our shop in 3 years. Asking for updated samples has been terrible. I like their light marble patterns, but we just can't get the sales of the colors with our local competition ordering bulk.

Hanstone - Lowes Allen & Roth brand. I find this brand very boring, and have stored away the tower. Again, no point for us to fight with Lowes for work.

Cosmos - Stopped selling this over a year ago. As mentioned earlier, their quartz is very suspect. We have had major pitting, had two sister slabs from same bundle (slabs 11 & 12) come out completely different tone at the seam. Cheap chinese stuff. When we complained about the quality, we got very poor service. Can you tell I am not a fan?

Q by MSI - Cheap alternative. Many around buy from this, but after my experience with Cosmos quartz, I will not venture that low on costs.

Granite Distributors and their independent brands - Seems that every granite distributor now has their own "brand" of the same looking quartz. We just don't bother as it is too difficult to show that many samples.

Wilsonart - Sales lady came by and said we needed to pay $1100 for a display tower. She also said they don't like putting samples in showrooms where other towers are located. I get that, but not when your product looks exactly the same as everyone else. Haven't bothered calling them back.