Counter Tops?

MommyLiberty5013

Zodiaq or Corian?

Any experience dealing with Home Depot? Costco?

We are still 2-3 years away from this project, but I saw a brochure on it today and I was curious for peoples' thoughts. Thanks!

omgladypirate

I don't have any experience with cost, as my home had corian when I moved in but I will tell you it stains more than I thought it would. Mine is a light color and has a few stains, nothing terrible or even noticeable to anyone but the people living here, but they're there. It also has some scratch marks (maybe the previous owners using a knife?). I prefer the look of other surfaces (granite, quartz) over corian, but it sure beats tile!

musictchr25

The bad thing about corian is that it can easily be damaged - stained or scratched, like PP said. It also is not heat resistant like natural stone countertops are.  The good thing about corian is that if you get stains or scratches, you can sand over them with a super-fine grit sandpaper and that will likely take them out. 

If you go corian, do not get the seamless sink. The corian in the sink will crack and look awful and at that point, it will cost hundreds of dollars to repair, and replacement is impossible since the sink is part of the counters.  

jenIffer

We have Corian on our bathroom vanity and it chips and dings more easily than I anticipated.

HeironimiWife

My husband manages construction of new healthcare facilities and his contractors all highly recommend Corian. We put in new Corian countertops in our house almost a year ago, we have no scratches or stains yet. However, if you go Corian... Try avoiding chain stores to purchase from and find a private seller. You'll be likely to get a better deal. Our private seller was half the coat of Home Depot.

RockABye

No idea if you'll see this, and even though I'm no help on the Corian part, we did our granite through Costco and it was a fantastic experience. It's not Costco itself that does the countertops, but they partner with outside firms who do the work. Just like if you found a granite place and picked them. Ours ended up being one a GREAT local company.. we got to pick out our slab and dealt totally with them and not Costco (other than the initial call to set it up). The benefit was that by simply calling Costco who then had the granite company call us directly, we got cash back. Which ended up being a decent chunk of change since it was a larger purchase! Again, this is granite and not Corian, but... there ya go.

All that to say, I definitely would recommend going through Costco for countertops or at least getting information from them!

Misha9

My husband and I are redoing our entire kitchen starting week of Feb 10, 2014. We currently have granite and we are staying with granite countertops. We actually are just doing an entire gut job unfortunately there is noting wrong with the countertop now except I hate the color and doesn't match our brand new Kraftmaid cabinets. We are going through Lowes for the kitchen job. So far they have been excellent we will see once construction actually starts. Also my parents have granite countertops in their kitchen and it has last for over 20 years, no stains scratches or anything. We literally as kids did everything on the counters from using it to cut directly on to whatever. Granite is the way to go.

TheKeithans

Personally neither. I like style and low maintenance as I am in my kitchen a lot especially when family and friends come over so we are doing stainless steel counter tops. But as far as Lowes is considered, I'm a loyal customer and have been shopping there for years. Great customer service, great products and professional.

gymbugmj2k

My husband and I redid our kitchen in 2012, and we chose granite after weighing all the options.  We were headed towards corian but learned that in recent-ish years, it's manufacturing material has changed, and is now a lot more easily damaged (keys will scratch it!).  We were between Quartz (zodiaq) and Granite, and ultimately liked the granite color choices better, not to mention granite is more heat resistant than quartz.

We did order through home depot during one of their 10% off sales.  This may depend on your local store, but this part was a nightmare.  HD contracts out to a local company for the granite, so the local company actually measures, purchases, installs, repairs, and services it - HD simply is a middleman in the process.  After ordering, HD's customer service was abysmal at best, tried to overcharge us, etc. It got so bad, that we started calling ShellFab (the local company) directly -- and they were awesome to work with.  If I would have known, I wouldve ordered through Shellfab in the first place.

...a month or so later, we accidentally stained the granite (left a freshly-oiled wood cutting board on the counter overnight... oil breaks down the seal on the granite and will stain!).  Home depot carried NONE of the stain removal products, had no idea what we were talking about, and even tried to tell us that granite doesn't stain!  Again, Shellfab saved the day for us.

...bottom line?  Go with what works best for YOU.  Do a lot of research about the different options and materials online, and ask the smart questions when you go to purchase and install.  If you order from a 'box store', ask if they subcontract, and how that process works.
Good luck!