some fabricators only charge you for what you use, then they sell the rest at their reminant yards...check with your fabricator!

If you get to keep the leftover, I'd have it fabricated for a small bathroom or something, since you are paying for it anyway!!

My fabricator will bring the stone if I want it. Problem is I'm not ready to pay another $800+ (that's his quote) for fabricating a counter in my master. Reason I ask is a friend of mine thought I should have it "just in case" I need to replace/fix my current (new)granite counter. Wondered if anyone actually keeps their left over and stores it.

I posted about this same thing awhile back. I've linked the thread below. I ended up storing mine in the basement, for the same reason your friend mentioned.

Here is a link that might be useful: Did you keep your granite remnants?

My sink cutout is in my garage under the convertible. It would make a great table top for a small table outside, but it has the circle cut in from where they plunged the cutter thingy into it.

We only paid for what we used. However, we do have the cut out for the sink and cooktop. We are using rhomboid shaped mosaic tile for our backsplash in a neutral color, and our tile guy is going to cut rhomboids to use as accent pieces every so often in the mosaic pattern. The mosaics are mesh backed, so he can just cut one out and replace it with the granite.

Thinking this through now (which I hadn't before and I just made a deposit on slabs)....it doesn't make sense that you just pay for what you use. We picked out the slabs at a yard and told them who the fabricator was. No $$ exchanged between me and stone yard. Fabricator HAS to purchase whole slab..in our case 2 slabs. Example: 2 slabs = 100 SF total and he pays $2,000. We only need 60 SF. Is he really going to pay for 40 SF that he may or may not be able to sell later? I doubt it!! If this is the case, then I am actually "giving" the fabricator the leftover 40 SF and he is turning around and selling it. In fact, he is making out even more because he is probably buying it for $1,000 and charging me $2,000 and selling the leftovers I "give" him to boot! Am I wrong about this? Now I want to be sure I get any leftovers big enough to do something with down the road, perhaps a fireplace surround.

Our leftover stone is in our garage. We have 2 pieces probably large enough for small/medium vanities. They are too small for our master vanity though, and I don't want to use them in the downstairs bath because of all of it in the kitchen. We may use it for tabletops or a fireplace surround, or we are contemplating trading it with a friend for some leftover typhoon bordeaux she has. If I end up not needing it for anything, I can probably sell it off on Craigslist. We paid the stoneyard and the fabricator separately, so there's no question about who owned it.

One caution, the stuff is heavy, so if you keep yours, you need to be prepared to move it safely.

We bought full slabs. paid for them separately. paid for fabrication separately. I supervised the cutting of the slabs so I could keep all the remnants. we have used one as the backsplash for the aquarium. other pieces are in the garage waiting for projects. I have a tile saw to I may be able to cut them into table tops etc.

It's interesting that in some places you pay stone yard and fabricator separately....not the case here (DC metro area). All of the yards we visited did not accept $ and asked who the fabricator was..... I think I would have preferred paying separately, then you know you own the entire slab. I may be duking it out with the fabricator for the leftovers.....

Unless you have a use for the stone immediately it is more of a PIA to store it than it is a benefit to keeping it. It is beyond HEAVY, and is actually a safety hazard to have at your home. Your fabricator will charge you storage on the remnants beyond a certain amount of time, or he will lose them. If you can't think of something to do with any excess right now, sell the stone back to the fabricator and consider it good riddance that it's not in your hair.

GreenDesigns, if I remember correctly you are a KD.....so maybe you can answer.....is the whole slab mine or just what I use? Seems like fabricator would pass along his charge for the whole slab, even if customer only uses half, since he can't be sure of selling remnant.....as stated before, are fabricators "double-dipping?"......essentially charging original customer for whole slab, then turning around and selling what was already purchased to another customer? I think a lot of fabricators never mention the slab is yours and people don't know to ask, so fabricator makes out twice....

The stone industry has different procedures in different locations. In many locations, you are only purchasing the square footage used, and the fabricator owns the slab, so any remnants are his to resell as he pleases. In other locations, the customer purchases the entire slab, and the fabricator sells you his labor, and any left over stone is yours. Most people don't do anything with the leftover stone and are happy to let the fabricator to deal with it.

Stone by itself is cheap. It's the labor that's expensive. So even if you have half a slab left over, you might be talking $75 for a common stone or $200 if it's an expensive stone. The "value" in a stone slab (besides it's rarity) is in it's large uncut state for large jobs without seams. Remnants just take up space and need specialty equipment to move. And as I mentioned, unless you already have a use in mind, leftover stone is more of an "attractive nuisance" to you and to your fabricator than it is a valuable commodity that anyone is being cheated out of.

I've never had a single case of anyone "needing" leftover stone for anything related to their kitchen counters. A few people have used remnants for outdoor kitchens or bath vanities, but the labor on those is still in the $40 a square foot range, so just because you own the stone doesn't make doing that any type of big bargain.

Stone isn't always cheap. Sometimes it is. The Shanxi black stone for our hearth was $10 per square foot. The Azul do Mar for our kitchen counters was about $54 per square foot.

Whether remnants take specialty equipment to move or not depends on how big they are. Our largest remnant was about 20 square feet of 2 cm thick stone. My DH and adult son have moved it around so 2 reasonably fit but not body builder adults can handle it - for moving it more than a few feet a decent small dolly helps.

We kept the remnants of the stone and used it for the surround of the new family room fireplace. It cost about $800 for fabrication and install of the fireplace surround and hearth.

We still have the rangetop cut out which has a laminated but not yet shaped and polished edge. We may use that someday to replace the powder room vanity. My DH kept the remnants of the Shanxi black which means we still have about the same amount of stone stored in the garage. I'd have let the fabricator keep it since it wasn't so expensive and we don't have any plans for it, but DH was the one who put in the effort to find a very uniform fine grained black for the hearth so I left the decision to him.

It seems unlikely that one would ever need the left over for replacing a damaged counter - the granite is usually pretty hearty stuff. But I guess one might have a use for a remnant if one decides to reconfigure the kitchen a bit down the road.

Joanie, my understanding is that there are some business that combine being a slab yard and a fabricator. In my area that isn't common but in other areas it is. These may carry mostly of granites that are commonly used and more consistent. In that kind of business, one is paying for the finished counters and usually not selecting the slabs. They are going to lay out for a minimum of waste and use left over parts of a slab from one job for another. So one pays for the amount of the granite one uses (which includes something to cover the waste - off cuts too small to use elsewhere and what gets ground up in the kerf).

For the granite fabricators that don't work that way, remnants may sometimes get sold, but they usually don't do enough business in small projects to keep up with the remnants they generate. Remnants are partly a small opportunity and partly a disposal burden for them.

Hi Joaniepoanie,

Some fabricators double-dip, some only charge for the material you use. Ask your fabricator if you are only paying for what is used and whether you may keep the leftover material (if that's what you want to do). My fabricator agreed to let me keep the remnants and then I made sure that was included in the contract. Have you already signed an agreement?

By the way, although I was told I was only paying for the material I used, I was also allowed to keep the remnants (which leads me to believe I was actually paying for the entire slabs).

After talking to several fabricators in our area, I discovered that the larger operations all just charge for the actual sf used. The smaller shops charge a flat fee for the fabrication and whichever material is chosen the cost of the slabs are added to that. You keep what is left over or can let them have it if you don't want it.

I am pretty certain that the places just charging for what is used are not double dipping because their price only changes accroding to the price of the stone (they group them by low, medium and high cost of stone here) When we went to the granite yard they give us the low, medium or high group rating when looking at stone to keep you kind of in the price range you need to be but do not give a ''price'' for the stone.

One of the larger places said they would charge $10 per foot for waste for a stone that was $38 per foot total because it is not a stone they use often enough to get rid of the remnants quickly. Everyone else just figured the sf and gave the price for material, fab and install.

I agree pretty much with Greendesigns on this. I'm not sure on his numbers, but the value in the granite isn't in a piece of granite, its in a large piece of like stone.

in my area I've never heard of someone keeping their reminants. You are buying a job, an installed kitchen, cost is $3000. whether they are "double dipping" or not, the only reason you are concerned about this is that you seem to specifically identify the material that was used on your job and "think" he can't reuse it. Plenty of contractors order more material than needed, you are bascially charged for this, and at the end of the job, its theirs, to either return, reuse or put in their house.

You don't know how the fabricator is pricing his job or running his business. he makes money making things out of the reminants. if he didn't, I'd assume the labor rate would be higher, or the profit on the materials would be higher. its really a zero sum game.

For every Cloud_swift who keeps her remnants and does something useful with them, there are dozens who just end up tripping over their cooktop cutout and finally just put it as a stepping stone somewhere in their yard. If the remnants are large enough to do another project with, like a vanity, then have them do the vanity now. If the remnant is more craft sized, like a cutout, then have a project in mind before you decide you want to keep it.

I had a client who saved her sink cutout to do "something" with "one day". Stored it in the garage, leaning upright against a wall--not flat, as it should have been. Bumped into it one day and it fell on her foot, breaking 3 bones. I hate to think of the damage a larger remnant would have caused! As it was, even with insurance, she ended up with about 2K worth of medical bills for her troubles. And when she came to me to do her outdoor kitchen, she ended up not using the scrap at all. She went with a different granite and had the fabricators haul away the piece.

I had another client who wanted her sink cutout fabricated into a cutting board. She paid $250 just in fabrication fees and never uses it because it take two strong people to even lift it up and set it on the counter. Plus, granite ruins knives, so I don't get why she wanted it as a cutting board to begin with. A cheese board, maybe, but any cheese board that takes a body builder to lift isn't going to get used either.

I had another client use their sink cutout as a headstone for a favorite pet. That wasn't cheap either.

If you decide to keep any remnants, make sure you have a project in mind for them and store them properly.

Thanks for all the input everyone! I will have to check with the fabricator...MAY want to keep some extra for a fireplace, but not definite on this...I knew my granite was on the higher end (Persa Avorio). The contract doesn't really give specifics, such as price per SF. Just the total price listing what it includes. We went with the fabricator recommended by our GC, although we got several estimates...his price was in the middle---a few hundred dollars difference in each direction. One place did say on their estimate "price of slabs $2500" then listed costs of fabrication. It would be nice if there were more uniform practices in this industry to make it easier on consumers.

We used a left over slab on a counter at the end of our hallway and even then there was more left over so I posted an add on Craig's list and sold it for $80.

Jodi-

I have one large remnant left and a small one. I know what we will do with each. The large will be used for a bathroom vanity, the smaller one for an round two-seater outdoor table. The remmants are in our garage, stored safely so they cannot fall. We are still two years away from the bathroom reno, so they will stay there for a while.

It is possible that we won't need them, but they were large enough that I couldn't just have them hauled away. The stone is fairly rare around here, so I probably wouldn't get something similar if I wanted it.

i kept one large remnant from my kitchen stove cutout and was going to use it for a bath vanity. i decided against it for the bathroom though, then thought it would be good for an outdoor kitchen but never got around to building my outdoor kitchen. so then i craigslisted it for $30 to a lady who was using it as a top for a kitchen cart. lots of use for it, and you can always craigslist it if you change your mind!

Thanks for all the feedback!

I agree that it's a PIA to store a large HEAVY stone that may not even be used. I've decided to give it to my dear friend who has been advising and helping me with this reno. Since she also loved the granite I choose, I've decided to give it to her. She's thrilled and said that can def use the LO's. Meanwhile, I've been admiring the beauty of my new counter tops for the past two weeks!