I wonder about the heat next to the glass. We have a SS high-back.

I have nothing to offer on your question, but must say your countertop is gorgeous! Mind sharing what it is?

Glass isn't a smart choice with your gas stove. You run the risk of it cracking. Consider a SS panel for the stove and glass elsewhere.

I have a painted glass backsplash and a standard, non pro type 36" gas cooktop with no riser. The glass behind the stove barely gets warm.

I have a 24x36” sheet of tempered glass behind my gas stove. It’s fine with the heat. Mine isn’t painted, it’s just the clear but slightly greenish color of the glass with the wall color showing through. You can order it back painted from the glass shop, any color you want. You don’t have to do it yourself, but that is a lot more expensive.

Thanks, Kane Home Cabinetry. I will look for it.

Doug B, yes, I wondered about the glass and the heat of the Bluestar even though it is pulled out 3". The glass tile store checked on one of the tiles, and the manufacturer said it would do fine behind the BS. I am not so sure.

Course411, it is Sea Pearl Quartzite. Very difficult to match a backsplash to it, at least with my lighting.

We leaned a glass tile behind the rangetop and turned two back burners on. We left the burners on med-high for a half hour. The tiles were not even warm. I am sure they would get hotter after an hour so that is not a good way to test. Maybe different manufacturers will say differently.

Sackingj, which stove do you have?

The largest tile I have found is 32" wide.

This link shows a problem with our counter and the seams by the Bluestar. Glass would be my 2nd choice if I can't figure out a way to do stainless steel panel.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5872984/one-more-time-backsplash-for-sea-pearl-quartzite#n=1

Andnee need the vent hood sealed.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5873004/broan-hood-installation-gaps-between-vent-and-sheetrock

I think small glass tiles are ok, but large sheets don't take much heat to crack. People have posted here about that exact outcome.

@Patti Yohe - would you be willing to share a few more pictures of your kitchen and countertops? I’d love to get a sense of the graining/patterning. We’re looking at Sea Pearl for our kitchen too. We’ll most likely be finalizing our choice on Saturday. We’re slightly disappointed that our favourite slab of sea pearl didn’t have a book match slab. So we’re going with a different pair of slabs but I don’t love their pattern nearly as much as that one single slab.

Chalkbag, Here you go. One thing...fabricators are not used to working with quartzite. Stress how much more difficult it is to cut and that the blades will dull quickly. Also let them know the color that you want to keep. (to make sure they don't use a sealer that yellows the stone.)

Brushed on 1 side and polished on the other side.

Click on the picture to enlarge.

I did not like the glare on the polished side. I wanted the color to be the show.

Mostly daylight at the fabricators.

Without sealer.

I love the texture. It is easy to clean and no staining. I make pastry dough, bread dough, biscuits, etc right on the counter. It stays cool.

Acm, that makes sense to me. Thank you.

Thanks, Patti. Gorgeous slab! Ver much like the one we love but isn’t bookmatched. The ones we’re now looking at have much more striations, not sure what to call it.

This is the one we love. Interestingly they have it labelled as granite.

These are the two that are matched. Not crazy about the mix of horizontal and vertical lines.

I have a 36” Bertazzoni 5 burner gas range. I used a 24x36” solid sheet of tempered glass behind. We ordered ours from a local glass shop with a 1” bevel , polished edges and 4 pre drilled holes for screws to attach it to the wall. Holes for the screws were drilled prior to tempering the glass. We put tiny rubber o rings between the screws and the glass to prevent over tightening and stress cracks in the glass. think the key here is to use tempered glass - tempered glass is heat resistant and safe to use behind the stove.

It will look different when you cut it because it will not be one large piece. How large is the slab and how large is your island and how long is your longest counter?

You could use brown, packaging paper, and create a template of every countertop you will have. Turn the paper around until they fit like puzzle pieces. Put the pattern you don't like, where the sink will be. You will not see that part because it will be cut out. Make the template and take it to the stoneyard. Save the best section for the island. A couple of examples...

It is very pretty. Cover half up with your hand so you can see it in a smaller section. Designers told me my Sea Pearl and oak cabinets had too much movement and were too busy. I think it turned out fine. I go by what I like and you should too. Your cabinets will be very pretty with the slab.

Post the two different slabs in this link...

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2692150/countertop-geology-part-six-let-s-talk-about-rocks-some-more#25177107

Our Rock Guru, Karin Mt will probably know what they are.

Sackingj, can you post picture from a distance and close up? It sounds pretty. I bet your stove has almost the same BTUs as mine. 1 @ 8,000, 2 @ 22,000, and 3 @ 15,000. Thanks.

Kitchen’s kind of a disaster right now - lol. I’d rather not have the evidence of that out there. If I get it cleaned up enough before bedtime I might snap a picture for you. I bought the range in 2012, I don’t remember the btu’s. But it has one really big double burner in the center, one tiny simmer burner, and three more normal-sized ones. I could look it up in the manual later if you need that info.

LOL. I remember the weeks we were waiting on cabinets and sheetrock.. Our cabinet guy built us a place to hold a sink out of 2x4s. It was so ugly. We had taken out all of the sheetrock on the ceiling and walls (including the insulation) and it was so cold in the living room/kitchen. I have a picture of my husband wearing a hoodie while he was cooking breakfast. Then we had no stove for a couple of months because of the wiring in the old stove. Unplugged it immediately. Lots of microwave cooking.

Whenever you have time to post pics...no rush.

I remember the months of no kitchen at all. Lovely sink cabinet, isn't it? I was lucky I had it.

The 220 to the stove was also connected to the closest 110 electrical plug. Scary!

Thanks for all the advice, Patti. We will take everything under advisement. We’re getting into crunch time to finalize our choices - we’ve been all over the map with countertops for some reason. It’s been the most challenging piece of the puzzle for us. And sorry for hijacking your thread.
I can’t believe you had to work out of that kitchen sink, wow! But what a transformation!

No problem. Match your backsplash before you decide on a stone.

Sackingj,

Can you post a picture of your glass backsplash when you have time?

Also, did you have to rebuild your wall behind the rangetop? People are telling me that I can't have wood studs and drywall behind my rangetop wall. (even behind the tile.)

They say it is not to code. Must be a non-combustible wall OR I MUST use a stainless steel backsplash with a 1" gap between it and the wall.

Our house is constructed in a fairly unusual manner since it is just a small cottage built in 1905, prior to any type of building code. We have clapboards on the outside, right over the studs, then wood sheathing boards on the inside followed by drywall, then the glass behind the stove (no gap). The previous owner of our house remodeled the kitchen in 1996, and had placed a sheet of aluminum behind her range (a very cool 1950’s gas Royal), which I replaced with the tempered glass. I guess I don’t know if it is technically to code or not - I didn’t ask. I just assumed it was done to code when it was remodeled since there were permits and inspections.

Here is a photo

I should add, my house is fairly low end, 1100 sqf, ~115 yr old house, and was apparently built from whatever spare parts and scrap lumber they had lying around. I mean there is a board on the underside of the basement stairs that has “boat motor” stenciled on it (haha- i love that board). For me in my home depot kitchen, I just thought the glass was very much an improvement over the ugly aluminum. If you are doing a high end custom kitchen, you will probably want something better.

I actually like your glass. I am going to try to use tempered glass. So much easier to clean.

I see that you have a 3"-5" tall backguard on your stove. That may be the difference between our stoves. My rangetop must have a 6" or taller backguard, but when I bought the Bluestar 7 years ago, neither the salesman nor Bluestar told me I needed a back guard of minimum 6" $800-1100. Now, I am hearing that the heat can overheat inside the wall behind drywall and cause a fire. My rangetop is pulled out 3" so I can't use a backguard which attaches to the rangetop. That would leave a 3" gap between my rangetop and my back wall. I could not clean behind it and it would look rather stupid.

Your house sounds like my house. When we removed some of the drywall, we found an electric wire that looked like those old brown lamp cords. They spliced it into another wire. We had hot wires with no caps on them just lying in the attic. One ceiling/roof beam was supported on one end by a single vertical 2x4 and the other end was supported by a steel I beam. 4 bolts were supposed to hold it, but 3 bolts had completely sheered off and the remaining bolt was severely bent, so it would have sheered off eventually. This was holding our roof up! Inspections can't catch stuff like that.

There were building codes when this home was built, but no one followed them. Makes me mad to pay for someone else's screw ups.

That sounds like a nightmare. Our house still had some old knob and tube wiring when we bought it, and five different types of plumbing pipe all randomly feeding into each other. No structural problems though.

If you do the tempered glass and are using screws to attach to the wall, make sure you order it with the holes pre-drilled before tempering. The holes cannot be drilled after the glass is tempered. Also you may want to use an o ring as a tiny spacer between the wall and the glass in addition to the one between the washer and glass on the front. My wall is not perfectly smooth and there are a couple of places where a rough spot smooshes up against the glass and makes a dark spot. I may go back at some point and fix that when I have time and motivation.

Copper metal sheet backsplash? Or another sheet metal.

not sure how it might fit into your kitchen, but I’ve seen this before, and it’s very cool.

Sackingj, thanks, I will make sure to get the holes predrilled and use gaskets like you suggested. I need to see if that will meet code for the Bluestar.

KatieB, thanks. I love the copper, but I have stainless steel on all the appliances. Copper is so pretty though.