bump

Also, they have some reeeeaaallly cool sinks.

I stumbled accross sonoma cast a couple of years ago, and love their sense of design. They really know how to make the most of their material, creating shapes that would be very tough to re-create out of anything else.

But I'm a little skeptical on the NuCrete stuff: they are very, very vague [probably to keep the process 'propriatary'] about just what's involved.

Concrete is stone and sand bound by cement, and cement is alkaline by nature. Acid etches it badly, and I'm not certain that equation can ever change.

If I had to guess, I'd say Nucrete probably uses a lot of acrylic additives mixed into the concrete, wich would limit the etching process. They probably follow that up with a surface treatment, possibly even an epoxy clear coat.

Overall, its a great choice if you like the look. But even with nucrete I think some degree of etching and staining are inevitable, and you'd better be preparred to embrace it rather than letting it irritate.

I'm also a little skeptical on the 'enviromentally freindly' stuff: even if the basic materials are more common in nature than granite, it takes a lot of processing, and a consumes a lot of energy.

Our choice of countertop probably adds [or subtracts] very little from our overall environmental impact, far less than the car we drive, where we set our thermostat or whether we re-cycle.

Thank you for the information on the pH of concrete, and speculation on what exactly Nucrete is. Very useful! I'm going to see if I can learn a little more about how alkaline Nucrete is and how that would impact how we use it.

In our case, it might be good to have a product for which we can embrace the "natural patina." We have two small children and are fairly rough on our space, so patina will happen. One of my life lessons: I got a terrific Lazyboy leather recliner about 1 1/2 years ago from the scratch-and-dent section (about 1/3 of the original cost); and, since it was already scratched, I have been very reasonable about the additional marks it's obtained. No yelling at all. Cutting out that period of "No! Don't touch that!" has been very healthy.

I agree with you that the processing and transportation costs of products are an important part of the green equation. Actually, one of the reasons I'm drawn to the Nustone tiles is that they have a high proportion of reclaimed/recycled material. There is certainly still energy use in actual production and transportation, but the issues aren't "the basic materials being more common in nature" but
a.) greatly reducing the costs of extraction for the product I use,
b.) the diversion of materials from the waste stream to go into the product I use, and
c.)the opportunity cost of not choosing a different product that would have even higher extraction, production, transportation, and, at some point, waste costs.

In terms of overall environmental impact, I also agree with you that the car we drive, our thermostate, whether we recycle, and the lightbulbs we use make a huge difference. Having done all that (or working on it, in the case of the car), however, I believe we need to keep going. I certainly haven't made all green choices for the kitchen; frankly, it isn't in my budget. If I can make some green choices, however, I believe I'm doing six things:
- communicating by example to my children that sustainability is important,
- communicating by example to my friends, family, neighbors, and anyone who comes into my house that sustainable choices can be made and can work,
- communicating with legitimacy, and by example, to my students (when I return to teaching) that sustainability is important,
- communicating to vendors with my money that I will pay for green items,
- supporting companies that are already offering green items, and
- reducing very slighly my environmental impact.

Although, for the last item, in the unlikely chance that all 270 million Americans also made a sustainable choice, the impact would be huge. Like elections: does one vote make a difference?

At any rate, apologies for the semi-rant. It's not directed at you personally - actually, I've been trying to work this stuff through in my head into a reasonable format, and this helped me quite a bit.

Off to research concrete pH!

Cheers, Cate

bump -

Cate - did you find out any more about nucrete? Anyone else out there used it? Thanks!

Jane - Sorry, missed your bump until just now. DH and I went to our local showroom today but weren't able to get a lot of information. The person who had been trained in Nucrete either was fired or left a week after the installation. I did get to look at a manual, got some specs, saw two Silestone bathroom sinks, and looked at their sample boards.

The material was more finished than I personally think of concrete as being, although I've actually run my hands over very few concrete countertops. It put me more in mind of a blend between concrete and Corian. It was not shiny the way granites and marbles can be, nor did it have as much perceived depth (again, to my eye) as soapstone. Still, the colors were nice (mostly earthy hues and intensities), it's a good option if you're a bit of a treehugger, and the price may be good. I say "may be" because I don't know what installers would charge. With much less grout work than standard counter tiles, I'm hoping installation wouldn't bump the price excessively.

List price for the tiles, in a standard color, is $250 for a 24" x 24" tile. Contractor discounts can pull that price down quite a bit, so you could end up with a materials cost of around $50/square foot.

Hth, and I'll let you know if/when I find out more.

Thanks Cate - I've actually got a couple of samples of nucrete from when I started researching this stuff - the company was very nice about sending them - I think I just called and asked, if I'm remembering right. I agree that it doesn't look quite like other concrete counters, but also that it has a nice matte look. I wasn't able to stain it in my tests, though they weren't extensive. When I pulled the samples out the other day, though, I noticed that the one I had done the stain tests on seemed to have been etched or something on the surface, so that the surface had different textures in different spots. Hard to tell whether that'd be a problem or not.

Anyway, thanks for the info and good luck!

Have you looked at ShetkaStone? I think they would be less expensive than that for a solid surface of counter instead of tiles. The only thing that did any damage to my sample was jabbing it with a fork, and I was able to buff that out with a nail file. I skipped it across the driveway, tried to break it on a pointy fence post (I was outside- it was a challenge at that point!), heated it with a torch (smelled awful but it looked fine), left red wine on it, left acetone nail polish remover on it-nothing. We ultimately cheaped out and are putting in stone tile since we're selling in the next few years. It's absolutely going in the next house.

Here is a link that might be useful: ShetkaStone

Well if that don't beat all. He sounds like a *fascinating* person. I want to tear out my corian and invest in Shetka's company.

Here is a link that might be useful: how the heck does it work???

I see it takes us to the main page of the business newspaper they say there's an article about Shetka in. I found the article by going to contents up on the top, then choosing products.

Here is a link that might be useful: go to contents, then to products

concrete gets LEEDS points and no granite/tile/plastic counter does. what's that tell you.

Anybody know the difference between Shekta Stone and PaperStone?

My local newspaper, the Chapel Hill News, just ran an article Sunday about a local company making concrete counters. concrete counters From researching this issue previously, I believe there are many people doing this across the country. I don't know if prices here are comparable to other parts of the country; to date, we have not had a real estate slowdown.

Some other options include :
Syndecrete or Icestone

Good luck!