Granite---lesson learned!

11 years ago

Hello everyone--I have not been on here in a while since we finished our kitchen remodel last February, but wanted to share a hard lesson we just learned. Long story short..if you have a granite remnant left over you want to use for another project in the future---put your name on it with permanent marker on the back as big as you can with contact info and instructions to contact you before selling it to someone else. From what I can see, most granite places will just put masking tape with your name on the remnant. Anyone can just come along, pull off the tape and buy your piece. This is what happened to us. It was partially our fault, we took way longer than expected to get everything ready...but when our fabricator told us this has happened numerous times...HELLO--stop using just a piece of masking tape anyone can pull off! Now we have to find a new remnant which is no easy feat since (another stupid thing fabricators do) remnants are stacked sometimes 10 or more deep and you can't even see them...HELLO---stack them back to back by two's so people can see them, especially if sales people don't want to accompany you to help move them one by one so you can see. Needless to say, this whole thing has been very frustrating and set us back even more when we are trying to get the house in order for our son's upcoming wedding. Lesson learned!

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Comments (7)

suzanne_sl
11 years ago
Good to hear from you, Joanie. Sorry about your remnant, but that's good advice about using permanent marker. Available remnants at our granite place are stacked edge down in a rack with vertical supports like you see for holding windshields, only sturdier of course.

A wedding! Congratulations!
cat_mom
11 years ago
I second the advice, though there is still a likelihood they will sell it anyway. We planned to use part or all of the remaining piece of our kitchen granite as an inlay in our fp hearth (in our FR). When we contacted our fabricators, who knew we planned to use it, it couldn't be found. It had "probably broken" we were told.

Luckily the stone yard had also sold slabs from the same lot (of our stone) to another local fabricator, so we were able to have a piece fabricated for our fp hearth after all. We were originally going to wait until they needed to cut into the slab for a larger job (and then could pay the remnant price for our fp insert), but given our experience, and the chance that the entire slab(s) would be needed by whomever, we opted not to wait, and paid the sq ft price to cut into and fabricate it directly from the full slab.
1929Spanish
11 years ago
We have our leftover marble from the bathroom in our garage. That way we know for sure it's there!
User
11 years ago
If there is a remnant you want to use ... buy it then and take it home.

Expecting a business to store it indefinitely until you are ready for it is not realistic. They need to turn the stock and make room for more stuff.
PRO
Granite City Services
11 years ago
"If there is a remnant you want to use ... buy it then and take it home"

Ditto. I've had customers come back 2 YEARS! after we did their job and be mad their remnant was gone.

re: marking, permanent markers can bleed, a paint pen designed for stone is much safer.
joaniepoanie
Original Author
11 years ago
Lazygardens and oldryder---I did purchase the granite, which means the fabricator made a double profit if he turned around and resold what I had already paid for. Also, the fabricator should have explained the process and options to me. I made it clear I wanted to use the remnant for the powder room and they told me they would mark it and hold it for me. They never mentioned bringing the remnant when they came to install the counters and leaving it with me or delivering it at a later date or us picking it up for safekeeping, or that they only hold it for 3 months, 6 months, etc.. Marking it with tape that anyone can pull off is just ridiculous and therein lies part of the problem. Had it been marked with permanent marker (on the back) or a "stone pen" or whatever, they could at least contact the party if someone else was interested or they needed to make room for other inventory. This is just poor business practice--period. I paid $5,000 to this company for my counters...a phone call would have been appreciated..but of course they couldnt call me because someone pulled off the tape with our name. I am in customer service and if I treated my customers as cavalierly as oldryder, I would be fired. And what people in the contracting/building businesses fail to get is the power of referrals or non-referrals in this case. I have had contractors not interested in my job because it was too small or not in the ritzy neighborhood, but what they don't seem to get is..it may be a small job now, but next year I might be putting on a $100,000 addition, or have friends in the ritzy neighborhood who are remodeling. Sorry, but IMO I cannot recommend this fabricator because options/timeframes were never presented to me and I was led to believe my granite was there up until a few hours before I was supposed to approve the layout. Terrible way of doing business!! And marking remnants on the back with permanent marker is a REALLY obvious no-brainer!
1929Spanish
11 years ago
I feel your frustration, but if they do one job a day, five days a week, they potentially have 20 customers worth of pieces at the end of the month. Times 12 months.....That's a lot of stuff to store indefinitely.

We used a remnant that our designer sourced for us. After we got our fabrication quote, the next thing we said was we wanted to keep the leftover. Then when it took us a little longer to pick up our marble, we would call from time to apologize and tell them we were coming. When we did pick up, we gave the guy at the shop a tip for helping us get it in the car.

This post was edited by 1929Spanish on Fri, Jan 18, 13 at 11:09