-
Posts
-
Have you guys and gals seen the new Consumer Report article about countertops? It ranks solid surface pretty low. Here is the article.
Seems like nonesence to me.
Andy
It usaully is crap. They have placed solid surface below all others for years.
I really like the line where you should put laminate in the background and make a stone island the focal point.
I just don’t understand how laminate can rate higher than solid surface, unless they are using price as a determining factor. When I watched the video on how they tested the materials they didn’t mention using price as a factor, but maybe they did.
Andy
We sell and fabricate both. We have always done P.Lam since the days before S.S. But they do not compare.
When you are in dire need of a top then you need lamainte if you have the extra cake, you go up from there. But rank higher than S.S. Never! First point you can’t fix P.Lam., can’t use it for cutting boards, and don’t even think of a re-finish.
C.R. has always ranked solid surface as junk for the most part. I no longer use C.R. to review anything becuase I have found them to be way off base on 90% of the things they rate.
This is the one time you wish C****N got invloved as far as the industry is concerned. One thing i was told a long time ago that has held true, is that “we must educate our customer about the material” because they have no clue. The part about the stone and laminate was based upon price.
John
Didn’t I see a report a few weeks ago where Consumer Reports got busted over some bad tests they did? They retracted the results publicly, If I remeber right. Might have been the wallstreet journal.
Al,
Baby Car Seats.
I looked through the reports to see if they were called out by a trade association or something of the like. The best I could get from the few newspaper articles I saw was that they may have drawn the ire of the agency that rates/regulates baby carriers in cars. Not sure if that is what happened or not.
Chris
That was it, Chris. Something about speeds used in testing the car seats. Caused the seats to fail and dump poor Timmy in the windshield. Nice to see them get a spanking once in a while…..
Al,
Mine get spankings 3 / 4 times a week. (Some times more)
Oh Wait, you meant Consumer Reports…….. My Bad…….
Jon wrote
How are we making out with this?
Jon:
The ball has been dropped and we have gotten our collective a$$es kicked to the curb.
I know you and everyone else is tired of hearing me say it, but the publication of this article was a drop-everything-lock-the-door-and-come-out-screaming moment for Robert Oxley, International Solid Surface Fabricators Association Executive Vice President. No other organization carries the weight, yet, that ISSFA does and Oxley failed our industry miserably by ignoring this shot across our collective bow. To know that the board extended this incompetent’s contract another seven years is truely frightening and saddening.
The good news is, take the article with you and it’ll help you sell estone.
Joe
Guys, time to quit jawing about this. Check out the fabricator prodgets for a new thread in a few minutes.
The retraction they had to put about was ccreated from the manufactures of the child safety seats. Along with the pressure from an organization that has been working hard to make sure parents use the child safety seats. The problem was the test were conducted by a party hired by cosumer reports and they were doing the impact test at between 60 to 70 miles per hour accidents. Well duh they are going to fail. So the test that the government has done were brought to their attnetion and the test were I think redone at 30 Mph accidents and geuss what all that failed before passed at a rating they were menat for. So CR had to retract the article, hence if we can get some good data about the countertops with proper testing then we can submit that to them and see what they have to say about their test. Who knows maybe the company they hired for the countertop test did not follow what they said they did.
Reuben
Ruben:
I’d be willing to bet that the seat manufacturer’s were all over this the minute the article came out. You’ve got to make your stink while it’s still fresh in the public mind or it’s useless.
There was a small window for redress and it slammed shut on Oxley months ago. It cannot be reopened.
Joe
All:
The Associated Press has an article in today’s Detroit Free Press “Probe Faults Consumer Reports Test”. Here’s the relevant section:
“Consultants hired by Consumer Reports to investigate how it botched a story about infant car seats concluded Tuesday that a major misunderstanding between the magazine and the lab that conducted the tests resulted in the error.
Mr. Brian O’Neill, former President of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said the misunderstanding persisted throughout the test because the test was devised with little input from outside consultants.
“During the test development process, Consumers Union needs to make sure that it’s got consultants with relevant experts outside the organization because almost by definition their staff cannot know everything because they test so many different products.” O’Neill said.”
I would be delighted to work as a consultant for Consumer Report’s next countertop test.
Joe
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.