Making Informed Stone Purchases: Choosing Between Natural Stones like Granite & Engineered Stones

Nearly every individual has come across terms like ‘natural stones’ or ‘quartz surfaces’ when trying to choose a stone type for their living spaces. However, most of them fail to understand what actually comprises natural stones. Further, a very small number of prospective stone buyers are able to understand the difference between natural and engineered stones. It is vital to have a fundamental knowledge about such terms and what each of them represents in order to make an informed choice when trying to choose a type of stone for your residential or commercial needs.

Basic Difference
To help gain a basic idea about the two kind of stones mentioned above, a basic differentiating description is useful. All natural stone are minded from the Earth and are further shaped, cut and designed for commercial use and are often supplied in the form of slabs or blocks. Whereas, engineered stones are artificially-created or fabricated stones but they do contain a high degree (about 90 to 95 % of natural stone constituents like quartz crystals). Engineered stones are thus able to offer a greater range of color/design options and have gained some degree of popularity as the cheaper version of natural stones but they cannot offer the kind of resilience and elegance that is associated with natural stones like granite.

Take Note — Many people do not realize that ‘marble’ is often used as a generic term to refer to all kinds of stones that are able to develop a lustrous surface upon polishing, except granite. Therefore, when you are searching for stone vendors, advertisements reading containing the word ‘marble’ could refer to businesses that are involved in procuring and sourcing other polish-friendly stones like serpentine, travertine, onyx and limestone.

Delving Deeper Into Natural Stones
Perhaps the most common and famous among all natural stones is granite. It is considered as the sturdiest of all natural stones, making it an ideal choice for use in households in the form of countertops that are exposed to a lot of weathering due to daily usage. Granite is known to have the intrinsic qualities that make it scratch resistant and largely impervious to the use of abrasive agents. Most of these qualities are present due to the long natural process through which it is made, being constituted under the surface of the Earth. Just like granite, there are other natural stones such as marble and limestone and each of them have different characteristic features. However, these are the more porous and thus, the more abrasion-prone of natural stones and cannot offer the kind of durability that granite does and even tend to lose some of their natural lustre with continuous use.

Delving Deeper Into Engineered Stones
The most popular term used to define engineered stones is ‘quartz surfaces’ which gives the prospective buyer the misplaced impression that these are natural stones and are at par with the unmatchable qualities of granite surfaces. Engineered stones do not have the individual grain or vein patterns that are found in natural stones as they are created under a controlled and systematic manufacturing process. As a result, most engineered stones will look similar in appearance as compared to the uniqueness that is offered by nearly each slab of a natural stone like granite. The more commonly-used forms of engineered stone are Silestone and Caesarstone, as they are quartz-heavy and do offer some level of durability but it is substantially lesser than that of granite surfaces.