I wish I'd read these comments before trusting Lowe's with my countertop install. I saved for 2 years to buy new countertops and wasted it on a dishonest company. The Lowe's store "specialist" handed me Allen & Roth fast track program flyers and said everything is done online. A & R fast tract means nothing. The program states 10 days, the store personnel said 15 days or less. My install took 59 days and ended up with a mismatched seam. Lowe's Sage Surfaces brought a large slab of granite (they called a free cutting board) to cover the mismatched seam. It's so heavy I can't move it. I was contacted later by Lowe's customer service and offered a 10% discount to "make it right". I have learned the hard way that Lowe's cannot or will not deliver on any promise or guarantee and they don't understand the meaning of "Make It Right".

"My big question for anyone out there with experience is will the crack spread?" It might, but it will stop when it hits the drywall so I'm not seeing that as an issue. If the top is installed properly, it won't get any wider. Your biggest worry is contamination. Over years of wiping, you can get tiny bits of crud jammed into the crack. This manifests as a tiny black line that looks like a hair that can't be picked up and will scream out to the home inspector of the person considering buying your house some day. "Should we take the compensation package and be ok with what happened?" It depends. Let's say replacing the top will cost Duracite $2,000.00 and will cost LG a slab which they will readily agree to give Duracite for free to make this go away. If you take a $1,000.00 settlement, you've saved Duracite $1,000.00. They breathe a sigh of relief and momma gets nicer window treatments. "Removing the slab will take a ton of time and could damage the cabinets." Tough cookies for Duracite; they better send the "A" team then, because they're on the hook for damages and re-plumbing. You may be concerned about cabinet damages and time, but don't let them know that. Tell 'em your wife is furious and she wants that thing the hell out of her house. You're the reasonable one and you're trying to work with them. I'm curious as to whether or not this crack is related to the installation of an insert-style sink clip. LG allows mechanical sink fasteners (page 26), while Ceasarstone prohibits their use, probably for this reason. Please check. It appears Duracite has followed LG's minimal radii for cutouts. If the crack is related to an insert and you develop another, tough luck. Any settlement is going to preclude additional claims. Fortunately, your particulate and lack of "movement" lends this particular selection of estone to easier and more inconspicuous repairs if any are ever necessary. I'd grind out the cracked particulates, replace them, and that crack would virtually disappear, but this is in the advanced class. Can feel whether or not the edge of the top at the sink has been slightly rounded? If it's a sharp raw cut, this could create a stress riser which can birth a crack. I just ground and polished a butter dish into a woman's vanity top and got a 5-star rating for doing so. Why? Because her 11 and 12-year-old boys had acid-etched and color-contaminated the etch. (They don't know anything about it, lol.) I couldn't deliver and install an estone top with a butter dish ground into it, but when faced with that or a $2,000.00 replacement, my bill looked mighty nice at less than $500.00. It's not about what's wrong, it's about who did it and who's responsible. Duracite's on the hook here. It sucks to be them, but it's a cost of doing business, nothing more, nothing less. Little teeny bit of pink left between the 3rd set of lights.

“you can order custom hoods at any depth you want.” Chispa, a standard non-pro range is about 24” deep front to back; a pro range is deeper than that. Add Joseph’s 12” to that and the hood would have to be 36” deep front to back. Yes, you can custom order anything, but how would a hood that measures 36“ front to back fit in a home kitchen? Please explain. I mentioned an island hood ducted through the ceiling but that may not be how the home is constructed for ductwork and beams. This 12” clearance issue involves a lot more than “If someone is spending money on a pro range, they should also be budgeting for the ventilation to go with it”. With this 12” clearance option, what do you do about base cabinets and counters surrounding the range? Are counters going to be increased to 36” deep also? Or, by how much can the range protrude from the surrounding base cabinetry? People sometimes get base cabinets that are deeper than the standard 24” depth. But those are 3-6” deeper than standard, not 12” deeper. And then, what happens to upper cabinetry above base cabinets that are that deep? And, are the dishwasher and fridge also pulled that far from the wall in the cabinetry run? Chispa or Joseph, please explain how a kitchen can be set up and designed if the range must be pushed away from the Quartz backsplash by 12“. As I said earlier, one can get a range backguard, or alternatively not get Quartz behind the range. Or there is the 12” clearance option, but I don’t know how a kitchen can be designed around that.

Is is possible the crack was there from the time of installation, but it's visible now due to build up of debris?