Stone worktops are low-maintenance, not no-maintenance, and almost all the damage we get called out to look at comes from four or five avoidable things. This is the guide we hand over on installation day, written out properly.
The first week
Silicone and adhesive need time to cure before the worktop gets wet or takes weight. We will tell you on the day exactly what to leave alone and for how long, because it depends on the product and on how warm the room is. Until then, keep water away from the sink seal and do not load the top up. It is a short wait and it is the difference between a seal that lasts years and one that lifts in a month.
Do not put anything heavy on an overhang until everything is fully set, and do not slide appliances across the surface. Lift them. A dishwasher dragged across a fresh top is a scratch nobody expected and an argument nobody enjoys.
Day-to-day cleaning
Warm water, a soft cloth and a little washing-up liquid does almost everything, on all three materials. Dry it afterwards with a clean cloth if you have hard water. Limescale spotting is the most common complaint on dark polished surfaces and it is entirely cosmetic.
For a periodic proper clean, use a pH-neutral stone cleaner. They are cheap, they do not strip sealer off granite, and they are far better than a general kitchen spray, most of which are mildly alkaline and will dull a polish over years.
Never use these on any stone surface
- Bleach left to sit: a quick wipe and rinse is survivable, but a puddle overnight is not
- Oven cleaner, paint stripper, drain unblocker or descaler
- Abrasive scouring pads, wire wool or scouring cream on a polished finish
- Anything strongly acidic or strongly alkaline, including some limescale removers
- Steam cleaners directed at the surface or, worse, at the joins and the silicone
Heat, knives and the two rules that matter
Use a trivet on quartz. Always. Engineered quartz contains resin, and resin scorches and can crack under thermal shock. That means pans off the hob, oven trays, and anything with a heating element in the base: slow cookers, air fryers, rice cookers, warming plates. Granite and sintered surfaces are far more tolerant, but a trivet costs three pounds and removes the question entirely.
Use a chopping board. All three materials will win against a knife, which is precisely the problem: you will blunt every blade you own and eventually you will find the one thing in the kitchen harder than the worktop. Boards also protect the edge of a sink cut-out, which is where more chips start than anywhere else.
Sealing: who needs it and who does not
Quartz and sintered surfaces are non-porous. They are sealed by their own construction, they cannot absorb a sealer, and anyone selling you one is selling you a bottle of nothing.
Granite is natural stone and is porous to a degree that varies enormously between stones. It is sealed at fabrication and needs re-sealing periodically. How often genuinely depends on the stone and on how hard the kitchen is worked, so rather than quote a number, use the water test.
- 1
The water test
Put a tablespoon of water on the worktop, near the sink and again near the hob, and leave it for fifteen minutes. Wipe it off. If the stone underneath has darkened, it is absorbing and it is time to re-seal. If it has not, leave it and test again in a few months.
- 2
Sealing, if it needs it
Clean the surface and let it dry completely. Apply an impregnating stone sealer evenly with a cloth, following the product instructions for dwell time, then buff off every trace of residue before it dries. Residue left on the surface is what causes the hazy patches people blame the sealer for.
- 3
How long it takes
About twenty minutes for a normal kitchen, once or twice a year for most granites. If that sounds like a chore you will not do, that is a genuine argument for quartz, and one we would rather you made before ordering than after.
Stains, marks and what to do about them
On quartz and sintered surfaces, almost everything sits on the surface and comes off with a pH-neutral cleaner and a non-scratch pad. Stubborn marks (dried-on food, marker pen, a scuff from a pan base) usually respond to a non-abrasive cream cleaner worked gently and rinsed off thoroughly. Metal scuff marks look like scratches and are usually not: they are aluminium transferred from a pan, and they wipe off.
On granite, a stain that has soaked in needs drawing back out rather than scrubbing off. A poultice (a paste of an absorbent powder and the appropriate solvent for the stain, covered and left to dry) will pull most oil and organic stains out over a day or two. Scrubbing an absorbed stain just polishes the area around it. Ring us before you attack anything with chemicals; we would rather tell you what to use than repair what a bottle of the wrong thing did.
Rings around taps and behind the sink are limescale, not damage. Warm water, a little washing-up liquid and patience will lift most of it. Do not reach for a descaler.
Joins, silicone and the sink
A visible join is typically 2–3mm and is glued and colour-matched at installation. It should stay flush and stay sealed. If you ever feel a lip developing across a join, or you see the glue line opening, ring us. That is what the workmanship guarantee is for and it is much easier to correct early.
Silicone is a consumable. The bead around a sink or against a wall will discolour and eventually need replacing, and that is normal maintenance rather than a defect. Keep water from standing against it, do not blast it with a steam cleaner, and replace it when it starts to look tired. On an undermounted sink, the seal underneath is what keeps water out of the units below, so it is worth a look every few months.
Chips, cracks and repairs
Chips happen at edges and at cut-outs. Most of them can be filled with a colour-matched resin and polished back so they are genuinely hard to find. Keep the chip if you can find it. It helps. Do not fill it yourself with anything from a general hardware shop; a bad repair is much harder to correct than the original damage.
Impact and heat damage are not covered by either guarantee, so a repair is chargeable, but send a photo to info@worktopworx.co.uk or ring +44 7479 194398 and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing and roughly what it involves. A crack that has appeared with no impact and no heat is a different conversation, and one worth having quickly.
A five-minute annual check
- Water test the granite near the sink and near the hob
- Run a finger along every join and check it is still flush
- Look under the sink for any sign of water getting past the seal
- Check the silicone at the wall and around the sink for lifting or splitting
- Look at the front edge and the cut-out corners for chips you have stopped noticing
Five minutes, once a year. It catches every problem we ever get called to while it is still small, and it keeps both guarantees intact.
The short version
- Warm water and washing-up liquid for daily cleaning; pH-neutral stone cleaner for a proper one
- Never use bleach left standing, oven cleaner, drain unblocker or abrasive pads
- Trivet on quartz, always: resin scorches and can crack under thermal shock
- Only granite needs sealing; use the fifteen-minute water test rather than a calendar
- Silicone is a consumable, not a defect. Replace it when it looks tired