We fell in love with porcelain slabs, but we were talked out of it by more than one fabricator. Fabrication is tricky and in reading many reviews, people complained about cracks and chips which are hard to repair since the design doesn’t go through and is only on the surface. We wound up going with quartzite.

Not much experience with porcelain slabs, but didn't like the granite choices out there like you. We ended up what they called granite at the shop, but the fabricator said it was dolomite. It has some movement like marble, but is less likely to discolor and stain. We looked at shops over and over until we found our current surface. Quartzite definite was on our radar as well . Good luck.

Donna, I was thinking about a white counter top but now will reconsider it, don't want cracks and chips! How is your quartzite counter top holding up? Can hot pots be put on them? What is the thickness of yours?

We only have the quartzite for about a month and so far have no issues. We are careful by using trivets. Quartzite is heat resistant, but not heat proof. We had granite for 18 years prior to the quartzite, never used a trivet or sealed it and it held up like iron. Hoping for the same result from the quartzite. Good Luck!

We're really looking for heat proof, so quartzite won't do. So it's back to the drawing board.....Thank you🐣

Oh, and for your second question. Our slab was only 2cm so we wound up doubling it. If you do that, be sure to have your edge mitered. Our fabricator laminated ours and we are not at all happy with it. We were never given the option. IMO your best bet would be to try and find a slab that is 3cm unless you want it thinner.

Your counter top sounds beautiful. I'll go look at granite again. After this pandemic is all gone we can have our kitchen remodeled! It'll be next year! Yeah!!!

This is ours called granite ”Dolomite.” My biggest problem is seeing crumbs. I’ve been putting Hot pans on it for a year(oops). I have been treating it like granite. No problems so far from that.

There are many white granites so don’t give up . I still prefer granite to any of the fake stones for sure it can take a lot of stuff with no issues but I like polished, not leathered or honed just good old polished like they have used for tons of years

Chris, How many times does your counter need sealling, it's beautiful!

The installer said we could do it once a year, but to really just rub it down with some dish soap to shine it up. He was a funny guy but very no nonsense. I watched him seal our latest countertop and it seemed quite simpleton do. We never sealed our old granite after installation. That was almost 10 years. We are not great at maintenance. It never suffered thankfully.

@vaig Quartzite is a natural stone and is highly heat-resistant, though a number of natural stone organizations recommend that you do not place hot pans directly on quartzite or other natural stones due to a phenomenon called thermal shock. You are thinking about man-made quartz that is more sensitive to heat with the resin included in its composition. If you don't want cracks or chips for sure, then I'd cross off porcelain. Don't elminate soapstone from your search. It's a fabulous surface. You'd have to see and feel it in person to appreciate its silky surface. I spent a long time looking at all types of granite and kept coming back to Beleza soapstone which is sold by several soapstone dealers in the United States, with the quarry located in Brazil. The Houzz forums are full of informative threads about the properties of all the natural stones, so it would be good to do some reading in the archives before making this large investment.

Dolomite is just marble.

Belaria, We don't want soapstone cause it scratches so much, with too much maintanence. I've researched all counter top materials for quite a while and I keep going back to granite, even though I haven't found a color that I like but will keep looking.

@vaig Beleza soapstone doesn't scratch easily. It is a 4 to 4.5 on the Mohs scale which is just below where granite's hardness range begins. Beleza darkens in time with some initial oiling. It would be similar to treatments of sealer on granite for the harder soapstones, so maintenance isn't always a level playing field within a specific class of natural stone. If you don't like the look, that's one thing, but "scratching" and "maintenance" isn't an issue with all varieties of soapstone by any means.

live wire oak got me curious about the Dolomite. Apparently, it’s sedimentary rock with characteristics somewhere between granite and marble formed from limestone. Online it touts heat, pressure resistance and scratch resistance. The color sold us and it was installed before we even knew it wasn’t granite. Never had heard of it before. I might have researched it a bit before purchasing if the supplier had told us. I would definitely make the same choice again a year later though. Perhaps we will get better at maintenance this time around follow sealing recommendations since we like it so much! i encourage you to keep looking if you have time.

Belaria, Weve decided on a lighter colored stone. Thanks 🐣

Chris, Thanks, that helps a lot for narrowing our desicion. I don't like maintanence either. I had originally though that light colored granite was very porous and needed more sealing and what you said eases my mind. Thanks🐣

@vaig Just beware that it's not uncommon for higher-end slabs to be mislabeled by resellers, and that would include quartzite and dolomite. If you do try to find a slab with high dolomite content, you'll want to do all the recommended scratch, stain, and etch tests on a sample. Marble is composed of either dolomite or calcite or a combination, as I understand, and the marbles with higher dolomitic content do wear better in kitchens, such as Danby marble. If there is any calcite in the composition, it could etch under the right circumstances, so just beware that slab yards sometimes do mislabel stones, and stones can vary in their chemical compositions even throughout a single slab. Granite would be harder than dolomite, but dolomite is harder than a calcitic marble. There's no need to eliminate quartz from your search just yet. Most people working on a budget who want lighter countertops go with quartz due to the variability in wear seen with many of the lighter colored natural stones. As mentioned already, if you find a variety you like, research that specifically to see if people have had staining and etching with that particular variety, and that will give you a clue what to expect.

Thank you darbuka for your info, soapstone is worth considering now. Always thought it had to be waxed but it doesn't Yah! I love the feel of soapstone!🐣

@vaig In fact, the harder soapstones like Belvedere, Beleza, Julia, and others don't do nearly as well with wax as they do straight oil if you want to darken the surface. The system I've heard as far as the Beleza we will be getting goes that at the time of installation you oil once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, and once a year thereafter. Or as the previous poster mentioned, if you don't want a darker color, oiling is completely unnecessary. We're going to oil because we like the more rich look. Here's a thread with a lot of in-depth information if you're interested in how the harder soapstones react: Seeking Beleza Soapstone Fissures & Oiling Advice

Belaria , . It looks like soapstone doesn't need waxing! So there's my lighter color! And to have it installed less costly than granite, although the soapstone itself is a little more costly but that's not a problem. We have only one slab yard here in town. The other ones are 100 miles away and the one we have is very reputable they've been in business for a long time. So thank you so much from your info too.. Well get to our kitchen redo next year.🐥

When M. Teixeira installed our Belvedere counters, they left us a huge bottle of oil, and a small container of wax. As Belaria suggested, we oiled once a day for a week, once a week for a month, etc. Not that oiling was required, we just wanted to bring out the gorgeous green and white veins. We haven’t oiled in three years, and love how the stone has lightened, while still showing the lovely veins.

Never have used the wax.

I don’t know where you live, but to get a satisfactorily fabrication, it’s important to chose a stone from a dealer who specializes in soapstone, not a stone yard that mainly sells granite, marble, and quartzite. We got ours from M. Teixeira, their NY/NJ location. They have other locations across the country.

Soapstone is a different animal. It needs to be sanded to a particular grit (I forget what that is)), in order to avoid water rings from glasses, and to get that silky, smooth texture.

Darbuka, The stone yard that we have here specializes in soapstone as well as granite. We live in Eureka, CA up on the northcoast. We have a Target, Walmart and Costco. Thats the extent of our big box stores! And we are 100 miles away from any big city.🐇 and we like to shop local.

80 grit usually, but it can be costly to change the quarry finish of soapstone. You might consider leaving the finish as is if it is a harder variety. The softer varieties do benefit from more of a honed finish.

“The stone yard that we have here specializes in soapstone as well as granite.”

That’s good, valg. Make sure to take your time looking at slabs, and testing for hardness. Anything you can scratch with a fingernail, pass by. Also, bring a penny. Without using much pressure, try scratching a corner of the stone. If it scratches, keep on looking.

Will your yard let you bring home samples? If so, bring them home and test. Drag a pan across it. Are there deep scratches, or are they slight? Any slight scratches will blend in, in a short amount of time. A dab of oil will speed up the process. Some people try to gouge the stone with scissors, or knives...but, come on, who’s ever going to do that in daily use?

Have fun with the process, (anyway, I thought it fun😊). Let us know how it all turns out.

Glass is the most commonly used item for a scratch test. Some people take a glass tile to the slab yard if they cannot get a sample of the stone to bring home. Never press the glass so hard that you might break the glass. Granite should not be able to be scratched by glass. Marble will be. The hardest varieties of soapstone can be scratched by glass, but not easily. To use the most accurate testing to define the level of hardness for the Mohs scale, you would want fluorite (4) and apatite (5), but to buy those stones just for a test is somewhat of a waste. A 4 to 4.5 on the Mohs scale is about as hard as you will ever find a commercially available soapstone. Then serpentine is next in hardness, then granite.

Soapstone is a fabulous surface, but it sounds to me like the OP is still maybe processing all the options, having started out wanting a white countertop. I still don't think a white or light-colored quartz should be ruled out in this instance. For someone who started out wanting a white or light-colored countertop perhaps with a polished finish, comparatively speaking soapstone is a very distinctive look, and you have to be committed to it to like it for an overall installation due to the matte finish and typically dark overall color tones. Dark colors in matte finishes look one way on a small sample but can be much more prominent when installed over a large surface area of the kitchen. The difference between a white countertop and a dark one is striking. If possible, it would be good to see if you could find examples of kitchens with soapstone counters installed to see them full scale before deciding, or at least kitchens with dark counters. We have a few showrooms like that with soapstone in my area that helped with our decision,

Darbuka, it'll be a while from our kitchen redo as my husband and I are high risk as to the covid so no one is aloud in our house. Next year for the redo it will be.🐦

In case you didn't see this article. https://maxspacestoneworks.com/pros-cons-porcelain-countertops/

Porcelain tile is used for flooring and if it had a tendency to chip and crack, I don't think it would be very popular. I have 40 yrs old every day dishes that are porcelain and though I've hit a few against my granite countertop edge, none have broken or chipped. Not saying that won't happen to a countertop as anything is possible but that is why I'd get a couple of samples and do some testing on it. And from what I read, a lot of fabricators seem to be bad mouthing porcelain because they don't have the skills to fabricate it. And those that do, you may find yourself paying a premium for their work- just a FYI.

Balaria, Green soapstone does look beautiful and I have a slate colored (gray green) new refrigerator. So it works!🐢

“Soapstone is a very distinctive look, and you have to be committed to it to like it for an overall installation.”

@Aglitter, what does that mean? Many people choose honed Virginia Mist granite because it mimics soapstone. What kind of “commitment” is needed by those who go that route?

Soapstone is simple, yet sensual. It’s luxurious, without being glitzy. Commitment to features like that? Easy peasy.

valg...I hear you. I, too, am high risk, having had a lung transplant nearly 2 1/2 years ago. I’m on a lifetime of immunosuppressant drugs. We still have finishing work to be done on our whole house reno...but, all that’s on hold. No one‘s been allowed in the house for about 2 months now.

darbuka, There's a discussion on here about Stress How Are You Dealing With It? re. The pandemic . It's somewhere on here anyway.Oh it's under Stories and advice.

Grout in a kitchen, especially on a counter, is not a Good thing. I also dislike most granite, but there is some very nice quartz out there. Keep looking

You might glean some info from these threads.

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5868005/looking-for-pros-and-cons-of-porcelain-countertops-thanks#n=16

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/3980431/porcelain-slab-countertops#n=52

I change my mind it seems a lot these days...I started looking at blue bahia granite also. I like blue and my husband likes brown. So I found this picture

Blue Bahia Granite Kitchen | Marble.com · More Info

This counter top makes me happy!!! I want a happy kitchen!.

Blue Bahia Granite Kitchen | Marble.com · More Info

Anyway, I'll keep looking and something is bound to creep up!

if you like blue, try Azul Aran granite. Personally, I think it's beautiful

This a project we have completed with large format porcelain slabs. If anyone is thinking about outside kitchen, porcelain has great benefits for outdoors too!