in thinking that granite worktop manufacture is the biggest license to print money ever?

[Heathcliffscathy]

I've just had 2 quotes for same worktop. The variation in price was over 7K!!!!!

have had a lot of conversations with wholesale stone yard and worktop manufacturers and it seems that at least 2/3 of the cost lies in the manufacture.

apparently most granites wholesale at between £30 and £40 per sq metre!

frigginghell!

We're all being fleeced out of our minds!!!!!

why do you even want one? decide you don't like them and spend all that money on continually cheaper easily as good ones that you can replace without breaking the bank

I do love my granite worktops though. Black, solid and lovely for working/rolling/chopping on, easy to clean and shine up a treat...

Our house had it fitted already, I'm probably too mean to have bought it if it hadn't already been here, at those prices! I had no idea it had such massive profit margins... maybe there's something else that's less of a rip-off but just as good.

i want one because i have a stone fetish. seirously. i love stone and crystal so it is v v important part of the kitchen to me.

why don't you see if you can order at source

it's very cheap eg in places like india, you could have some flown back, probably be loads cheaper than 7k

Then have it. Mine pleases me very much and it lasts forever (unless you chip it. There is one teeny chip in mine where I clinked a bottle on it .. but only I know where the chip is. Usually the bottles come off worst.)

sophable - you'd love my kitchen floor (that I'm leaving behind today as I'm moving lol) it's dark red quarry stone tiles - 'tis lovely

you misunderstand me.

the stone is not the expensive bit. well, the stone we want is v expensive relatively speaking, but it is not the expensive bit.

the difference it making the worktop is coming out at 8k. eight thousand pounds difference on the same job.

and if i wasn't a cunning weasel i wouldn't have a clue.

ffs.

Oh don't. When we moved hen I was 3 or 4 there was a 7 foot grantie slab in the basement of the new hosue that we had a base built for and used as a dining/kitchen/working table in my parents restaurant (was in our house so was shared kitchen)
I loved it, was so good for pastry and rolling and working on, and just looked beautiful.
We moved it to the next house (took 6 removal men to carry the top) but then had to sell it.
I am gutted that I know I would never be able to afford proerp granite worktops

def try ordering at source though.

Granite takes a huge amount of working is very very hard and takes a lot of cutting and polishing.
Your comparison is like comparing a rough diamond which costs virtually nothing, to a cut and polished jewel in cartier.

www.granitetransformations.co.uk - will cost about £500 - my friend had it done and it looks amazing

arghh.

spider you're not hearing me!

the cost of the stone remains the same whomever you use.

however, the cost of the templating and cutting by two recommended places varies by 8K!

so one place is making about 1K profit and the other is making 8K profit!

I hit the same problem when we had ours fitted, the profit margin seemed to be down to the size of the company, the bigger company...the bigger profit ....we hit lucky with our kitchen fitter, turned out he knew a guy who was a 1 man band & imported the stuff himself direct from a stone mason in Italy,

on the upside, it saved us an extra £4000 on the cheapest quote, but on the down side, as a small company, he didn't have much clout when things went wrong at the stone masons, & the Granite ended up arriving in the UK 3 weeks later than it was meant to....causing a 5 week delay in getting the Kitchen finished

Stress at the time, but well worth it in the end, as we paid less than a 1/5 of the original quote & I do live it still

Might be worth you asking around Kitchen fitters & even funeral parlours for granite supliers, & then ask the suppliers which agents they use, you might be able to save a bit more still that way

that's exactly what i've done...asked a wholesaler for a fitter rec.

and saved myself 8K! (not that i could have begun to afford the first quote!