Ceramic worktops – Everything you need to know about maintenence, colours and prices!
Ceramic worktops – Maintenence, Cleaning and General Use:
Neolith, Dekton and Lapitec surfaces are nowadays the top choice among all solid stone surfaces. Ceramic worktops are a definition of modernity and stylishness, but most of all, they are durable and hygenic solutions that will last you a lifetime. Read below to learn how to take care of sintered stone worktops:
General cleaning
It’s true that ceramic worktops – or sintered stone as it is typically named – can be cleaned with utmost ease. One of the biggest attributes of these materials is that their mainenence is straightforward and requiring very little effort, primarily because ceramics are completely water proof. In most cases giving the surfaces a wipe with a bit of water and soap will do the job, and ensure your worktops are prestinely cleaned of all grimes, dirt or residue. However, if your ceramic worktop is covered in grease, oil or other heavy liquids, then we highly recommend using a special stone worktop spray specially designed for these ceramic worktops. They not only help you battle the more resistant liquids, but also provide your kitchen worktop an anti-bacterial layer. We are in posession of such sprays, so if you require one simply contact us and we’ll supply it to your door.
Thanks to high resistence of ceramic worktops to elements like heat, liquids, oils, acids, scratching or even corrosive paint, worktops made out of sintered stone are used by many professional and renowned chefs around the world. They clad their entire restaurant kitchens with this product, because not only they look modern and unique, they are genuenly a great functional asset in the kitchen. When used as a cooking station or cooking worktops, not only convenience is provided but also the efficiency and flexibility during food preperation.
How professional chefs utilise ceramic wortktops to improve their cooking?
The most pleasant thing about cooking on ceramic worktops is that the hob can be interchangeably used with the ceramic worktop. In other words, you can cook something, then rest the pot/pan immediately on the sintered stone surface without worrying about burning/staining the worktops. In the meantime you can stick another pan on the hob.
Thanks to this flexibility, whether you are a professional chef or an amateur who enjoys versatile cooking, you need not to worry about prchasing trivets or ruining your chopping boards. When you have a ceramic worktop as your surface, you have the whole solid surface to operate on, and you aren’t restricted during cooking. Ceramic worktops offer a lot of extra space and freedom.
Another advantage of ceramic worktops during cooking is that the vegetables / meats can be cut directly on these surfaces – so no chopping desks are required. Ceramics are so resilient to scratching that no knife will damage your worktops. In addition, because ceramics are completely heat resistant, you can even caramelise your favourite crème-brulee’s with a blowtorch directly on the ceramic worktop. And unlike laminate or wood worktops, no sign of burning stains / wear & tear / defects will be noticed. Before ceramic worktops were released onto the market, many tests were carried out to ensure this material is nearly indestructible. They were subjected to hefty chopping of olive-oil saturated salads, burned directly with blow torches, exposed to object impacts. In the end, this allowed Dekton Cosentino, Neolith and Lapitec to perfect their product and release an almost flawless solid surface.
Do Ceramic Worktops require regular sealing?
With ceramics, no sealing is required, as is often the case with wood or granite worktops. The porosity proof and bacterial proof ingredients are impregnated into the ceramic materials during production, and these properties remain there forever. Therefore once you buy such surface, you won’t have to worry about it ever becoming prone to liquid absorption / loss or fade of colour.
Ceramic Worktops – An innovatively flawless kitchen worktop surface?
It certainly seems that way! And it is especially the case for those who love cooking, functionality and minimalism within their kitchens. There’s no doubt that by using these worktops you save a lot of time and money. No more purchases of trivets, or messing about with constant cleaning of chopping boards, especially during complex cooking. It is truly a fantastic product, offering a lot of freedom. Everyone who purchases it from us is very impressed, and to date we have never received any complaints. As a result, we always recommend this material to demanding customers who want to go beyond the standards, and elect a reliable worktop that offers not only beauty, but most of all flexibility and practicality.
Ceramic Worktops – Explaining the Colours and Imitations:
As we mentioned in the main Ceramic Worktops article, there are roughly 150-200 sintered stone colours available on the market. For the start, designers of sintered stone love to get inspired by patterns already existing around the world, and then they create fairly accurate imitations of these organic compositions. For example, in Neolith’s collection you can see a plethora of metallic shades: the likes of rusty iron or browning copper. There are also reflections of natural wood, for example, their timber colours are brimming with spirals and woodgrains. Their range of natural stone mimics is even greater. Interestingly, more or less 16 marble-lookalike variation are availabe from Dekton, Neolith and Lapitec combined. Such marble-lookalikes are saturated with organically looking veins and folds. In fact, these replicas are so well recreated that many are deceived into thinking it is in face real stone, metal, concrete or wood. This is until they touch the surfaces, and realise it is actually the texture of stone.
Why a customer would choose such imitations over the real deal? Why are sintered stone lookalike range worktops better than real wood, metal or stone?
This is very simple. Many people want to implements the visual representation of wood, metal, concrete or natural stone in their homes. However, they do not want to deal with the flaws of the archetypes. As we mentioned above, with this stone you get no scratching, staining, chipping; the kitchen worktop won’t burn or produce burn rings – all these aspects would instantly affect wood, metal, marbles or even concrete for that matter. Therefore most desire to have the visual elements of nature in their homes – the unpredictibility offered by wood grains, the organic veins within marbles, the bubbly texture of concrete or the unique, modern appearance of rust. However, above all, they desire a nearly indestructible material that can withstand all harsh conditions and extremely complex, prolonged treatment.
Now, a fantastic solution is available: sintered stone. In essence, with ceramic worktops, the customer gets the best of both worlds – appearance of a natural element, but technical benefits – like durability and resistance – of engineered stone.
Ceramic Worktops – The Pricing:
If you are contemplating the price of the ceramic worktops, read below to find out all the details:
Are worktops ceramic as affordable as any other stone worktop products?
In short, the average price for sintered stone can be quite high, though the affordability of a specific stone is solely determined by the company, design of a material, availability and product-demand. On average, you will be probably looking to spend somewhere in the range of 700 pounds, excluding VAT, for a single slab, measuring approximately 3.2 by 1.5 meters. Out of such slab, you kitchen can be manufactured, and if it’s small to medium size, one slab should suffice, but if you have a large kitchen + require additional elements like splashbacks, upstands, worktop side-panels etc. then a second slab will be required.
As we mentioned above, the price of a slab may be lowered if, for example, the company e.g. Neolith have good offers on. The amount of discounts Polish Granite gets from each company will also impact the price. The same goes for product availability, if stock is high and product old, the material is likely to become cheaper, perhaps in range of £400-500 per slab. If, however, stock is low and product-demand is high, the price per slab will increase. Likewise, if the product design is brand new, and elaborate, you may be looking at prices of £1.5k + VAT for a single slab. Please bear in mind that material prices constantly fluctuate, so it’s worth either contacting us or the suppliers directly to enquire about the current slab costs and other related info.
In order to find out how much you’d be looking to pay for a slab, and to establish which variables apply to your desired material, please feel free to contact our customer service team, who will answer all your questions and provide you a quotation. Alternatively, in order to get an instant general idea of how much the whole job would cost you (i.e. material, ceramic worktops manufacturing, templating and instalaltion), feel free to email us, or complete our Quotation Online – a calculator system which – in a matter of minutes – works out your approx. cost.