Revive Concepts - Our Products

Granite Kitchen Counters, Reconstituted Stone,
Engineered Stone

For many years, stone benchtops have been a popular and up-market option for kitchen design. Traditional marble or granite kitchens have always looked great, but these granite kitchen counters have some draw backs.

All natural stone is porous.

This means that it will absorb liquids or other spills and therefore is very easy to stain. Good quality, expensive Italian granite is a reasonable option to use as a kitchen benchtop as long as you ensure that it is properly cleaned and maintained and re-sealed on a regular basis.

Much cheaper granites, have become more readily available in recent times, however these granites, much like most marble, are much softer and much more porous than what most people expect, and even with regular maintenance and regular application of sealers, they are often stained with spills as gentle as dirty water. Because they are much softer, they are also much easier to chip or crack.

This is where Engineered Stone is such a perfect solution. Made from a combination of natural stone mixed with a polymer or acrylic base, engineered stone has the advantages of solid stone, without the draw backs.

Engineered stone is also known as reconstituted stone. It is also often referred to as synthetic stone, or one of many brands who make engineered stone such as caeser stone (ceasar stone), essa stone, quantum quartz, corian, or smart stone.

Most engineered stone manufacturers make a 20mm thick slab which is used in much the same ways as solid granite. While they overcome most of the staining problems which occur in solid stone, they still retain some of the drawbacks, relating to cracking, due to the lack of flexibility of the slabs, and their installation procedures. They also use different ratios of stone to polymer/acrylic, which creates varying levels of scratch, heat, stain and impact resistance.

To use these products, any existing benchtops generally need to be demolished before new tops can be installed, often resulting in damage to splashbacks, cabinets, or walls.

This is why we choose to use a better alternative...

At Revive Concepts, we have chosen the products that offer the best in style, strength, durability, cost effectiveness, and flexibility of use. We have chosen products which have some of the highest stone contents available in engineered stone.

The engineered stone products that we use are-

NaturaStone- available in 16 natural colours

NaturaStone products have a stone content in excess of 90%. This results in the surface being as hard, and therefore as scratch resistant as possible, while still containing enough resin to give it stain resistance.

The high stone content also maintains a high level of heat resistance, and the risk of cracking due to thermal shock, is reduced by the flexibility of the polymer or acrylic base. The flexible base, combined with the fact that the sheets are engineered and manufactured to a nominal thickness of 6 to 6.5mm, gives the entire surface the ability to flex with movement, load changes or impact.

One of the most basic principles of engineering is to allow movement in order to eliminate cracking. These principles are used in structures, buildings, bridges, etc all over the world. The same principle is applied to your benchtop, and when this is combined with our installation procedure which involves bonding the stone to your existing benchtop, or a new substrate with an epoxy adhesive, the result is a much stronger and durable benchtop.

The stone benchtops are not prone to cracking, even with settlement/movement of your home, minor impacts, or even standing on the engineered stone countertop to change a light globe, or dust your cornices.

Ask a 20mm reconstituted stone benchtop supplier if you can try standing on their benchtop, and see what they say!