I'm kind of confused about the problem. If water stains your granite, you've got real problems. Water is pretty omnipresent in a kitchen. What have you tried to fix the problem?

Even the so called no seal granites darken with the water used to fabricate them. Give it a few days to see if it eventually dries out.

Or might have hard water and calcite in the stone.

They did tell you that honed AB has long been known as a night mare to keep clean and uniform?

I knew honed granite was going to be finicky just didn't expect it to be worse then soapstone or marble.

The contractors literally just finished with the kitchen and I think what happened was they wiped off my countertops on several occasions with their dirty sponge that was very wet and then left them there to dry. The water and film from the sponge dried into the counter top.

I have them looking into it b/c I think they need to fix it. It either needs to be professionally cleaned or the granite guy is going to have to come out here and rebuff it. It's one thing if I make the marks but another totally if I pay all this money and this is how they leave my kitchen.

It's almost like the guy didn't seal the granite. I don't know. Learning my way around and if this is how its going to be then i'm going to have to get used to the imperfections.

Just wiping it off with a wet sponge isn't working. Hoping a granite cleaner will do the trick but not sure.

By the way, soapstone is absolutely not finicky at all. You could wipe it down with hydrochloric acid and nothing would happen to it, except that it would be really really clean. I know you've got your granite already, but just in case someone reading this is still in the decision process, I want to be clear.

Soapstone is the least finicky stone you can choose. You can't hurt it with anything but a hammer.

Good morning, uws250

Did your stone guys use an enhancing sealer on the tops? Is it possible to post pictures? Your problem sounds really odd and you honestly should have no more trouble cleaning and maintaining a PROPERLY INSTALLED honed stone than you would for any polished one.

Let us know what your fabricator's reaction was and give us some more details if you still have the same problem.

Stonegirl- I honestly don't know. My kitchen designer has put a call into the granite guy to see what to do. I will try and post pictures and agree i wouldn't have expected a wet sponge to leave marks. I don't have an issue with fingerprints etc but for every sponge swipe to leave an impression is too much.

Vjrnts- My parents have honed marble and honed soapstone in their apartment and have to keep it really clean. Especially the honed marble. Hence my comment about honed granite not being as finicky.

Clearly, something was not done to my granite and I have to figure it out. thanks for the tips. If anything it confirms that what is happening shouldn't and this is an issue with how the granite was probably not treated.

Should I try a granite cleaner? I feel like I shouldn't do anything until the granite guy calls or sees it.

AB is very dense and should not have to be sealed.

For now, I would wash down the counter really well with dishsoap and hot water. You will need to rinse very well and several times to get all the soap residue off. Don't let the water dry but wipe in light, circular motions with either a car buffing cloth or a microfiber cloth. You won't hurt anything by doing this.

See if that helps and try to observe if some areas are darker than others or if there is any weirdnesses in the stone.

Unless the stone is doctored, I think whatever is going on is totally on the surface and will eventually clean up.

Yours sounds very much like mine - if I just wipe it with water and dry it, it will often still look streaky (see my post "not loving my honed abs black") -- the aerosol granite cleaner (don't have it in front of me but I got it at Lowes) works very well -- better than the non-aerosol cleaner my installer gave me.

uws250: "My parents have honed marble and honed soapstone in their apartment and have to keep it really clean. Especially the honed marble."

We have soapstone. If something spills...it does not stain...even if unnoticed overnight. All spills wipe up in one swipe....there is no work involved in keeping it clean...so I'm not clear on what you mean when you say that they have to keep it really clean...

Maybe it's the oiling that bothers them???

Metromom- if you remember what granite cleaner you use would you please post? thanks!

It is Rock Doctor Granite Cleaner, give it a try. Sort of stinks that it's the only thing that seems to work - but at least I know I can get it looking great using that.

Do you know if yours is enhanced and/or sealed? Mine is sealed but not enhanced, which I think is why water spots show - the stone is gray but the water spots are black. I think an enhancer could make the whole thing black so the spots wouldn't show, I just hate to lose the gray color.

I have honed ab counters also, and I never clean them with soap and water because it just leaves them a streaky mess. But I don't use any special cleaners either. To clean my counters I use Method All Purpose cleaner and paper towels. It works great for me, plus I don't feel like I'm putting chemicals on my counters where we cook and eat because it's all natural. I don't work for the company or anything, it's just what works for me.

Have heard that a spray bottle with 1C alcohol and 3 C water with a drop of Dawn is the perfect stone cleaner. It is pH neutral and also works great on glass tops. I have used it on our absolute black table top and it works great. It is cheap also!

Call the granite guy!! have him come back and fix it. Dont tryit yourself with any of these remedies because he might then say YOU ruined it.

I agree. Leave it alone or the granite guy will feel he's now off the hook and will walk out the door. I have soapstone in my bathroom for 25 yrs. and I didn't like the grey and started oiling it. I hate the process. Depending upon what is done around the sink--hair spray, brushing one's teeth, shaving, etc. takes spots of oil out of the stone leaving grey marks. Then I say to myself, do I wash it down and re-oil or just re-oil? Life is too short for all this. They make some great looking formica today with great edge trim. Then when you get sick of it, it isn't expensive to replace. Some times the tried and true is best. I think we have been conditioned to believe that formica makes for a cheap installation--we all need to get over this. It's all really a mindset you know.

Yes, leave it alone till the granite guy bails on you.

Still, this is sounding more and more like a stone top being a stone top. It isn't supposed to be perfect or stain free.

I do my best to educate customers, but when you finish the install and go over the care and cleaning for one last time, it is interesting to watch their expressions. You can see that finially the warnings about granite and its issues are sinking in. Spending an hour during the sale doesn't help, but that last five minutes shows that they "get" it at last.

One of my favorite lines from a play, it stuck after I read it once,

"We learn nothing save through sorrow,
memories of pain fall drop by drop,
upon the heart at sleep,
against my will comes wisdom,
untill the grace of the gods is forced upon me.... "

Did you get this problem resolved? How discouraging.

Carpentershop, your quote is from "Agamemnon", a play written by Aeschylus in 458 BC.

Another quote from that play is:

"It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered."

I do my best to educate customers, but when you finish the install and go over the care and cleaning for one last time, it is interesting to watch their expressions.

carpentershop: What cleaning method do you tell people to use that causes their expressions to change?

So the granite guy is coming tomorrow with a special cleaner. He said my granite is sealed and recommended cleaning it with windex and a dry paper towel. I tried this but it didn't work so he's coming over to look at it and fix it.

I'm confident we'll get it figured out. Will post once I get the final results.

For polished AB, this works very well for water marks. I put a drop of dishwashing liquid on the scrubby side of a slightly damp sponge and then make circles on the countertop as though I were applying paste wax. Wipe the soap off with a dry paper towel and then rinse with warm water. After that, hit it quickly with the 1/3 alcohol, 2/3 water mixture in a squirt bottle and dry with a microfiber cloth.

I know, revans, isn't that still a treasure? funny how all the translations differ so much.

And another quote that is timely,

So, in the Libyan fable it is told That once an eagle, stricken with a dart, Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft, "With our own feathers, not by others' hand Are we now smitten."

Jerzeegirl,
we give them the MIA guidelines, do a quick verbal once over cause some people won't read anything.

My absolute black kind of got milky the first couple of days. I figured it was the drying of the "grout" stuff and after it settled in, that stopped but not sure what it was. I just wipe mine with water and what toothpaste and soap have collected on the countertop and then buff with microfiber. Beautiful!

Well, when I was looking into various countertops, I was told by everyone that honed granite is not sealed. Instead, it is wiped regularily with mineral oil.

In the end, I never went with honed granite, it just seemed like it would be too much work in the long run and for me, who really uses their kitchen, I did not warm to the thought of more cleaning.

Method cleaner is FAR from natural...

Uws250: Was this ever resolved?

I know this has been asked and answered But I still need some help. After an extensive search for a slate counter top I settled for honed black granite. The owner of the quarry guaranteed me he would seal it before delivery and it would not leave any discolorations. That did not happen, the installers just wiped it down with a sealer and when epoxy was used for the sink glue residue & finger prints set in as well as every splash of water after the faucet was connected.
I called the dealer?quarry the next day and he said he would take care of it. 1 week later everything was leaving stains even if I wiped it immediately, splatter from the stove just spread with each wipe. I called again and told him he needed to send someone over to remove the stains and reseal it properly. His response was well it's stone it's going to do that?????? but he would sell me a sealing kit!!!!I responded what good is that if it's stained. he said use bleach, didn't work either. Help! this guy lied to me and now I'm stuck with a top that is getting worse by the day, is there something wrong with this stone? What can I use to remove the glue stains & food splatter, water marked do come up if I repeated scrub them but that's all day every day???????