Tell me about granite work surfaces please

[IlanaK]

I have just bought a flat (not moved in yet) and found out today the kitchen work surfaces are granite (you'd think they might have advertised that as a selling point!) I have not had granite before, so tell me what wonderful things I can do with it.

Can I use it to cut stuff on? Does it scratch?

Can I put hot pans on it?

How do you clean it? Can I use a scouring thing, or will it scratch?

don't cut stuff on it, it won;t scratch but will shag your knives

yes you can put pans on it

clean it with anything you'd use on a non-stick pan

tis a bugger for showing watermarks though, so if you can face it then a special granite spray eg Method (from tesco) will help

I have granite, it looks lovely but I have to polish it daily.
I am careful with it and don't cut on it or put hot pans on it.
I use a normal cleaner and polish it with an 'e cloth' you can buy them in Lakeland/john Lewis etc ( they do a special one for granite.

Polish it with HG natural stone cleaner - 'tis wonderful and smells lovely (homebase)

Give the developer a big kiss!

I try not to cut on mine (for the knives' sake! It doesn't do anything to the granite but blunts knives quickly), I put hot pans on it all the time straight out of the oven and just use ordinary kitchen spray to clean with. Still looks as new as the day we put it in (9 years ago). I think it's virtually indestructible tbh.
It's also fine with acidic fruit juices - lemon etc. Marble's the one that can't take those.

Well, I don't polish mine or use special cleaner and it looks fine (but then I am a slattern). We have a nick in the edge of ours and I have no idea how it got there but DH was remarkably calm when I pointed it out to him which made me suspicious. The only thing I'm careful with is lemon because a friend got a mark on hers from a cut lemon left cut-side-down.

I use a special granite spray on mine but It doesn't get rid of the chalky water marks around the sink where I have left the dishes to dry.Does anyone know how to get rid of them please?

zombie, I found I had to scrub hard with a pan scourer to get the water marks off.

The other thing you might try is baking soda BUT I have not tried this on granite. I use it on the white corian worktop I now have and it is good at getting stains off. I would not expect it to scratch granite. But it might. Be careful.

can you try viakal, or something similar?

I just use an e-cloth and hot water to clean ours - and put hot pans on it all the time with no ill effect.

per above, it does need to be maintained as other surfaces do.

Windowlene - wipe then polish dry - works a treat.

e cloth or the method granite cleaner here to get it shiney or else it drys dull.