Marble Countertop Installation Davie, FL

Installed, most Davie kitchens using a Carrara-type marble land between $60 and $90 per square foot, with the whiter Calacatta-type slabs running $90 to $150 and statuary or book-matched material going past $250. Marble has the widest spread of anything we install, and almost all of it is the slab rather than the labor. Two kitchens of identical size can differ threefold because of which rock they chose. Those are installed numbers, which is the only kind worth comparing: a material-only rate leaves out fabrication, cutouts and installation, and those are most of the job. The honest way to compare two marble estimates is to make each one name the specific slab it is based on and say whether that slab is stocked locally or has to be ordered. Two quotes that look far apart are often quoting different rocks. We will put a written, itemized figure in front of you before anything is ordered, and it holds unless you approve a change in scope.

Usually not, and the honest answer is that the ranges overlap enough that the question is the wrong one. A common Carrara starts around $60 per square foot installed, which is above where a common stock granite starts, around $40, but a mid-range granite and a mid-range marble land close to each other, and at the top the marble goes much higher than the granite does. So the price is not what should decide it. What should decide it is that granite is a hard siliceous stone that shrugs off acid, and marble is a soft calcareous one that reacts to it. If somebody is steering you to marble because "it is about the same price," they are answering a question you did not ask. The two materials cost roughly the same and behave nothing alike, and the behavior is what you live with every day for fifteen years.

Like a water spot that will not dry. An etch is a dull patch where the shine is gone, usually a shade lighter than the surrounding stone, and the defining thing about it is that you only see it from certain angles and in certain light: walk around the island and it appears and disappears. That is the difference from a stain: a stain is darker than the stone and sits inside it, an etch is lighter and is the surface itself, chemically changed where an acid touched it. On polished marble etches are obvious because there is a lot of shine to lose. On honed marble they are far harder to see, which is why we recommend honed to anyone who is nervous. The first ones usually show up wherever you cut citrus or set a wine glass down, and most people notice them at about month three and then stop noticing them entirely.

Yes, and that surprises people. A light etch is polished out with a marble polishing compound and a soft pad, which is a job you can do yourself on a small mark in about twenty minutes. Deeper ones need a professional stone restorer with progressive diamond pads, who is re-polishing the surface rather than coating it. It is the same trade that refinishes hotel lobby floors, and there are several in Broward. A full counter re-hone and re-polish is a real service and it costs a fraction of replacement, which is worth knowing before anybody tells you a marred marble counter has to come out. What you cannot do is prevent it permanently: sealers slow absorption and do nothing about etching, because etching is a reaction with the stone and not something soaking into it. Anyone selling you a sealer as etch protection is selling you the wrong product.

No to both, and marble is stricter about this than any other stone we install. Disinfecting wipes are acidic or bleach-based and glass cleaners are ammoniated, and on calcium carbonate all of them etch the surface directly. This is not about wearing down a sealer the way it is with granite, it is the cleaner attacking the stone. Vinegar, lemon, bathroom sprays, tub scrub and most descalers are the same story. What marble wants is warm water with a few drops of dish soap, or a cleaner labeled pH-neutral and made for natural stone, on a soft cloth. If you need to disinfect after raw chicken, wash with soap and water, then use a wipe on that spot and rinse it off immediately rather than letting it sit. Keep a stone-safe cleaner under the sink on day one, because the damage here comes from someone reaching for the familiar bottle, not from cooking.

Three, and they are all the same fact wearing different clothes. It etches, because acid dissolves calcium carbonate and a kitchen is full of acid. It scratches and chips more easily than granite or quartz, because it is a softer stone, and the corners are where you will find it. And it is porous enough that oil left overnight can move in, though that one is usually reversible with a poultice while the etching is not. What is not a downside, despite the internet: marble is not fragile, it does not crack from normal use, and it does not need constant work. It needs a stone-safe cleaner and an owner who accepts patina. The failure mode of marble is not the counter breaking. It is the owner being unhappy with a counter that is behaving exactly as marble behaves.

Longer than the kitchen around it. Marble counters in European houses are measured in centuries, and the material does not wear out in any way that matters in a residential lifetime. So the useful question is not how long it lasts, it is how long it looks new, and the answer to that is roughly six months in a kitchen that gets cooked in. After that it is not new anymore, it is patinated, and it will keep looking that way for as long as you own the house unless you have it re-polished, which is a service you can buy at any point. That is why we ask the temperament question before the measurement. Marble does not have a lifespan problem. It has an expectations problem, and the way to solve it is to decide up front that you are buying a surface that records the years rather than resisting them.