[Norm Walters]

I was called to look at a possible repair yesterday. I get to the woman’s house and she shows me three areas where her solid surface top has cracked. Each of these areas had three cracks, starting from the center of the top, spidering out into different directions. An obvious case of customer abuse, (hot pots).

Another reason abuse was so obvious is that while I was there she proceeded to drain some boiling noodles into the sink with no cold water running, (although the sink wasn’t cracked yet). then she immediately sat the pot down on the top, right where one of the cracks were.

I asked the woman if she was aware that you weren’t suppose to set hot pots on solid surface tops. She told me she runs a catering business out of her house, and no one told her she couldn’t do that. She bought the house with solid surface tops already installed.

There was no repair piece to be found, even it there was, I would have needed three of them. I told her I could fabricate a new top for her, and she said , how much, I gave her a ballpark, and she said, that’s ok we are selling the house and will just give the people credit for the top.

I left my card, but I am pretty sure whomever buys this house will probably not replace the tops with solid surface, just my opinion.

[Lenny E]

Hi Norm,

Thanks for posting that. The funniest one I ever heard came from Steve Bace. He got a call from a lady who said her sink fell off. He went out to the job, and sure enough, the sink fell off. He had the wherewithall to ask, what exactly were you doing when the sink fell off?. Her reply was -Well, I was standing in the sink changing the light bulb overhead. This lady was by his account, hmmmm one of the more rotund examples of the female human species.

Almost as funny as the sink complaint from the guy who was degreasing engine parts in his sink, or the little girl who was using the Fountainhead bar overhang (replaced 3 times before we found out) as a spring board to jump into an adjacent chair. The Customers story prior to that was- I set a glass on the overhang and it broke. (Geez!) She was a cute lil scamp but we denied the claim the 4th go round anyway on mere principle. because she pulled the spingboard flip into the chair while the inspector was there.

Gottta love it,

Lenny

[Norm Walters]

Lenny, I forgot to mention it, on one of the cracks was a white spot. She told me her husband tried to heat the top up with a torch because he had heard that it would become molten and repair itself. I wish I had a pic of hubby with the torch, lol.

[Mike Gladstone]

What kind of food does she cater?Since she most likely not replace the top, you could offer to put some of the “nice” routed in cutting boards that A&M sells. Quick and easy, and will stop those cracks from expanding. At least you’ll make a little something for yur trouble.

[Lenny E]

Dear Norm,

Most excellent guru of SS fabrication, please stop, your killing me! Where did uniformed hubby get that advice? A stone site maybe? Or is he like me and just thinks it up as he goes along? (my favorite quote about Capt Jack Sparrow in the last Pirates of the Carribean..do you think he plans it out all ahead of time or just thinks it up as he goes along?)

Unbelieveably,

Lenny

[Norm Walters]

Mike, most likely she wasn’t even planning on me repairing the tops anyway, she just wanted a price to credit the buyer. She had cheap FHA carpet in the house that she wasn’t going to replace either, just credit the buyer. I new it was a waste of time from the get go, but I went anyway.

Thanks for the heads up about the routed in cutting boards though. Are they beveled on the sides, or how does that work?

[Mike Gladstone]

Norm,

You’ve probably torn on of these out in the past. They are mainly used in laminate tops. Here’s link you can check out.

http://www.vanceind.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=43

[rmarshall]

Norm, http://www.vanceind.com

We are a distributor for them. Have a master catalog at the office.

Dave

[Norm Walters]

Mike, I thought you were talking about a solid surface cutting board that dropped in like a large plug. I have actually used one of the cutting boards you are referring to on a SSV repair, actually looked like ti belonged there.

[Tom M]

Dang it, Dave, you could have read my mind and saw that I was trying to find a different distributor for these things!

Can you send me out the newest catalogue?

[Karl Crooks]

Norm, we see this ALL the time. When they move forward on the repairs, and the tops look new again, they see the real value of solid surface !

[Andy Graves]

Don’t laugh at the torch idea, I tried it once. We were making over 200 sign blanks and they had to be done for the next day. So I pulled out the torch and tried to polish the edges. While you are laughing let me save you some time…It didn’t work.

[Ken Pfister]

Norm,

Here’s another interesting sink failure . We got a call to look at a sink failure for the Oval. When we got there the customer reported the sink just exploded. Upon investigation it turned out the homeowner was having a party. Until it was time to cook the lobster they were being kept in the sink in ice. Once the lobster was dropped in the boiling water, the ice was emptied out so the spaghetti could be drained in the sink. Kapow! Most broken sink I ever saw. And the Oval even paid us to replace it after we told them it was customer abuse.

KenJ

[Norm Walters]

Ken, I think alot of failures are happening because when a house is sold, the new owner has no idea of what to do, and not to do with solid surface. I’m not even sure how to remedy the problem. Maybe let home sellers know that the warranty is transferrable, and that it’s a good selling point, but to somehow include the care and cleaning of same.

[Author]

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