Quartz Stone Countertop Malaysia

If you already know about the quartz stone and are looking for our available colour, vein and pattern options, please have a look at the two brands we distribute in Malaysia by clicking the site menu above.

1. Caesarstone is the international top 1 quartz stone brand.
2. Zenstone is a Malaysian brand OEM China genuine quartz stone.

This is an in-depth aritlce about quartz stone, quartz stone countertops, and the quartz stone market."

What is Quartz Stone?

Depending on the design composition, quartz stone is an engineered stone made with quartz, polymeric, crushed marble, ceramic, silica, glass, mirror chip, and many others materials. Then use resin to bond all materials together and make it a slab form.

It must contain enough quartz sand (80 - 93%) to gain the benefits discussed below.

Quartz stone looks, touch and feels like a stone, and it's manufactured to achieve advantages beyond natural stone.

What Is A Quartz Stone Countertop?

The word "countertop" confuses many people by just reading it. People often think it's a top for the shop and office's counter.

In fact, all these words countertop, worktop, benchtop, tabletop, and kitchen top refer to the same thing as below,

The countertop is a horizontal surface built for work in the kitchen or a flat surface for food preparation.

What Is The World Best Countertop Be Like?

1. Indestructible
2. Unbreakable
3. Forever remain the same colour
4. No fair wear and tear
5. Invincible
6. Immortal
7. As cheap as possible

Ops~ We go too far. Let's go back to reality.

We humans can't manufacture and fabricate such stone material, especially with current technology.

If we could invent it, it would be for the planet Mars migration purposes first.

Enough cold jokes

So, Is Quartz Stone The Best Option?

Our answer is yes, quartz stone is the best stone material for indoor countertop application.

But it's unsuitable for an outdoor countertop like BBQ pits and an open roof wet kitchen.

Why? We'll discuss it later.

The Most Important Feature Of Quartz Stone

Non-Porous Material

Please have a look at the orange skin.

See the tiny hole?

The stone surface has similar tiny holes. We called this "cannot be seen by human eyes' hole" - porous

How To Determine Quartz Stone Is A Non-porous Material?

According to our manufacturers' test report (technical sheet),

The result is less than 0.05%. What does it mean?

In other words, 99.95% of water cannot penetrate the surface.

This feature determines quartz stone as a non-porous material.

Non-Porous Make Quartz Stone Stain Resistance

If water has difficulty, go into the surface, not to mention curry powder, curry sauce, turmeric powder, coffee powder, chilli sauce, red wine, etc.

What if we leave the foods and drinks on the quartz stone's surface for a long time, said 30 days?

Yep, there is a 0.05% rate and that causes a permanent stain.

How about leaving turmeric for 7 days? We can still remove the stain based on our in-house test.

Let's watch a video,

We use a highlight pen and a permanent marker to simulate the stain. The permanent marker (the stain's boss like turmeric) is hard to clean. It takes time, but we still can clean it with the CIF cleaning foam.

We recommend not leaving heavy colouring foods or drinks on the surface for more than 48 hours.

The best practice is to clean the surface after cooking to maintain the beauty of the surface for a longer time.

More Non-porous Important Features

Non-porous is an essential feature of quartz stone. It solves many hygiene issues.

Bacteria & Mildew Resistance

Bacteria need space & moisture to grow a colony. Non-porous leave no room for bacteria and mildew to grow.

Safe For Food Preparation

Non-porous also leave no space for food residue.

Perfect for kneading the pizza dough and bread on the surface directly without worrying about bacteria, mildew, food residue and other harmful germs.

Quartz stone is NSF 51 certified and well suited for food preparation.

Resist Acidic Foods

Acidic foods such as lemon juice or lime juice do not affect or dim the surface - acidic resistance.

(Video Coming Soon!)

Easy Cleaning

Non-porous leave no supporting point for oil to stick.

This makes quartz stone easy to clean. Say bye-bye to sticky oil.

Low Maintenance

Unlike natural stone like marble which needs to apply sealants to maintain lustre, extend the lifetime of its beautiful surface and increase its stain resistance level every few years.

Quartz stone does not require much maintenance because non-porous eliminate most of the hassle.

Does Quartz Stone Resist Heat?

Let's refer to the technical spec sheet again.

So many alien words (jargon code),

Let's make it simple by focusing on the boiling water test. The test report indicates "no effect". What does it mean?

We need 100°C heat to boil the water. It means 100°C caused "no effect" on quartz stone.

Let's watch one of the test videos,

How About Extreme Heat?

We don't have the equipment to get the extreme heat. But, we found a stonemason from YouTube who tested the heat on quartz stone from 200°C to 600°C.

Let's watch it,

What surprised us is he tested on one of our popular colours - Zenstone Quartz Surface White Mirror.

The video shows that quartz stone can resist heat over 150°C. However, we DO NOT encourage putting hot cookware on the quartz stone countertop top without a trivet.

Torture The Quartz Stone

Let's watch how we torture it,

Why can't the heavy cutter scratch the quartz stone?

According to the US National Park Service's Mohs Hardness Scale, quartz's hardness is scale 7.

A knife with a lower hardness scale of 5.5 can't scratch a higher hardness scale 7 material - quartz stone.

What is the Mohs Hardness Scale, in short?

It is a hardness test to scratch among 2 specimens to determine which material is harder.

The harder the material, the higher it can resist scratch.

For more information about Mohs Hardness Scale, visit:

Geology.com

Wikipedia

National Park Service

Why is Quartz Stone Hardness Important?

Quartz stone is the highest hardness in the kitchen environment, making sure no kitchen item, cookware or utensil can scratch it so easily. Hence, it could maintain its appearance for a long time.

This hardness makes quartz stone a high scratch-resistant surfacing product in the kitchen.

Are You Satisfied With Genuine Quartz Stone Quality?

1. Non-Porous Material
2. Stain resistance
3. Scratch resistance
4. Bacteria resistance
5. Mildew resistance
6. Heat resistance
7. Acidic resistance
8. Low maintenance
9. Easy to clean
10. Safe for food preparation

We Are Not Done Yet. Genuine Quartz Stone Has More Benefits

Non-Flammable Material

Let's see the test report again.

Well, it's complicated to explain all these fire test results,

In short, this fire test determines that quartz stone is not easy to flame, fire spread, or smoke.

Quartz stone is made of natural quartz and stones. It is like we can't fire up the stone, right?

If you want to know the fire test index and result details, you could read the fire test on Wikipedia.

Repairable Up To A Certain Extent

Unlike engineered stone using printing technology which has a 1-2mm texture on the surface, quartz stone is homogenous.

Minor scratches can still be polished. Please note that we can't polish 100% back to its original status. Similar to granite and marble, the polish spot is noticeable.

We noticed the discolouration in the third year (2019), and it remained the same discolouration until 2022.

Colour Consistency

Quartz stone is excellent for large scale cladding, and the manufacturer can produce a uniform appearance of quartz stone.

Said you want the whole corridor wall to have the same colour, veins and pattern. Quartz stone can satisfy your needs.

Wide Range Of Colour

With 42 Caesarstone quartz surfaces, 49 Zenstone quartz surfaces, and 43 Silestone quartz surfaces, We could provide more than 134 colour and shade options, mimicking terrazzo, granite, jade, pure and marble to match your kitchen design.

Chemical Resistance

Either a natural stone or engineered stone is not afraid of the household dishwasher. If a dishwasher is so powerful that it damages the stone, it'll hurt your hand first.

To check whether the quartz stone is chemical resistant, use lacquer thinner; It's corrosive. You could buy a lacquer thinner from a hardware shop pour it on the quartz stone.

If you see the surface become matt. It is not chemical resistance.

In fact, lacquer thinner does not affect genuine quartz stone at all. We often use it to clean the remaining sticker glue on the surface.

Crack and Chip-off Resistance

One of the key ingredients in quartz stone is resin - a highly viscous plant substance used to bond quartz stone ingredients.

It makes quartz stone a hard material while maintaining some flexibility.

This flexibility is needed to fight against thermal expansion and avoid cracking.

And also, because of the resin, quartz stone rarely chip-off.

However, the resin also brings a disadvantage to quartz stone.

The Quartz Stone Disadvantage

Every type of stone has its advantages and disadvantages.

Quartz stone is not suitable for outdoor usage especially exposed to direct sunlight. The UV ray of the sun affect the resin and slowly cause discolouration.

Based on our test, we installed a quartz stone countertop on one of our staff's apartments next to the window without a blind in the year 2016. The countertop exposes to evening sunlight.

We started to notice the discolouration in the third year (2019) and remain the same discolouration until 2022.

Conclusion

The benefits of quartz stone make it a virtually worry-free surface, especially for indoor countertop applications.

No need to pay extra attention to take care of and maintain it.

About Us

Stone Innovations Enterprise is a stonemason company specialising in the supply & installation of natural & engineered stones.

We have been one of Malaysia's pioneer quartz stone suppliers, fabricators, and distributors since 2013.

Quartz stone is one of our essential products. We custom make, supply & install genuine quartz stone for the following applications:-

1. Kitchen Top
2. Vanity Top
3. Kitchen Backsplash
4. Kitchen Shelves
5. Pantry Top
6. TV Cabinet Wall Cladding
7. TV Cabinet Top
8. Bar Countertop
9. Breakfast Countertop
10. Dining Table Top
11. Coffee Table Top
12. Side Table Top
13. Cashier Countertop
14. Sauces Countertop
15. Wall Cladding
16. Other surface tops, cladding & decoration purposes

Quartz Stone Market in Chaos

Malaysia quartz stone market is bloated with many different qualities and grades.

Many house owners caught up the trouble,

House owners sent the following photo to us,

There are also similar posts reported on Facebook especially in the renovation, interior design and construction groups.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. We believe there are many cases out there.

Why Are These Happening?

There are 2 reasons:

First, Low Quartz Content's Quartz Stone

Suppose quartz stone needs 85-93% quartz content to have all the benefits.

The lower the percentage of the quartz content, the more benefits will be sacrificed, example:

1. The lower the quartz content, the lower the hardness; The easier the stone can be scratched.
2. The bigger the porous, the easier the stone can be stained.
3. The more the stone powder, the easier the acidic foods can damage the stone.
4. Lacquer thinner damages the stone easily.

Second, The Worst Material For Countertop

The low content quartz stone still can hold up to a certain extent. The problem might occur a few months later.

The worst countertop material you might get is a compressed marble countertop.

This stone initially is made for budget wall cladding. But, it looks similar to natural marble at a significantly low price.

But if custom-made for countertop application, the countertop problems happen as soon as you use it or sometime before you use it.

What Is Compressed Marble In Short?

The manufacturer used recycled crushed marble mixed with pigment, colouring, lime powder, and glass powder and used compressed technology to make it a marble slab again.

After that, using a stone print technology to print marble's texture, vein, and pattern on the surface.

Low Price Close Deal Easier

Genuine quartz stone prices scared many owners away.

Compressed marble looks like marble and is low price.

The house owners are not a stone expert. They wouldn't know in-depth about a stone

Those suppliers make a final blow and say it is marble-effect quartz stone. Bang, close deal and the owner tragedy begin.

We Willing To Help But Can't

Owners find us online and hope we can help repair or polish.

We're willing to help, but repair or polish could not solve the problem.

The same situation will keep happening because the actual problem is the stone quality itself.

How much money and time do you plan to keep spending on the polishing?

Why Do Owners Not Contact Their Ex-Supplier?

We asked: "why not call back their supplier to touch up?"

The owners' replied: "after telling the supplier about the problems, the supplier no longer picks up the call."

What is even worst is some suppliers block contact.

It's Hassle, Waste Of Money & Time

Mr/Mrs owner, what if this tragedy happens to you?

Would you close your eyes and let the problem keep getting serious? Or take the hassle and money to find a new supplier to custom make a new countertop?

Why Those Suppliers Ignore Owner?

We guess the supplier sell very low price. The touch-up cost can't cover their losses. Ignore owner at least can maintain some small profit margin.

Or the supplier knows the product is low content quartz stone or compressed marble that touch up is useless to solve the problem.

Profit Or Reputation?

Why do those suppliers not think about their reputation?

The answer is simple - a custom-made stone countertop is not a repetitive business. Custom made one set, last for a decade.

You will not custom made a second set so soon anyway. Plus, even you want to custom made a second set after a decade, they don't think you can remember them.

For short sighter suppliers, what is reputation? Can feed the hunger?

Business Ethics

Some suppliers will be honest with you and tell you the product they're selling is low content quartz stone or compressed marble.

They emphasize the disadvantages and let you decide to use or not to use it.

Don't expect all suppliers to practice business ethics.

The Article's Mission

This article is to provide in-depth information about quartz stones, quartz-stone countertops and quartz stone market.

We've no defamatory intention.

Few Tips Select Quartz Stone

We might not have the colour and shade you're looking for.

There are many genuine suppliers out there.

We would like to share a few tips on how to choose genuine quartz stone:-

1. Choose quartz stone with warranty. Quartz stone often comes with 10 years of material warranty.
2. Choose quartz stone with a brand. Usually, the vendor would keep the reputation and not risk by importing low content quartz stone.
3. Request a sample you would like to confirm, test it with the below method before placing an order.

Test & Check Method

Let's see the quartz stone below,

Translate the sticker, this quartz stone uses some kinds of nano-technology, diamond quality, stain and crack resistance.

Is it a good quality quartz stone? Let's test and see,

We'll use Harpic 10x for this test.

Let's pour on the surface,

Keep staring and wait for 10 - 15 min,

During the test, you should not go away. By the time you come back, the bubble reaction might already be over.

Bubble reaction? Why does this happen?

This stone does not have enough quartz content and contains too much stone or lime powder. The more it had, the faster you could see the bubble reaction.

Second, this stone was coated with a sealant on the surface to make it shiny. It will create a bubble reaction too.

Either one, it is not the quartz stone you're seeking for,

After wiping the Harpic,

1. A layer of sealant is gone
2. Become rough surface, tiny hole can see by human eyes now
3. Colour faded
4. Discolouration

This kinds of quality quartz stone give the house owner many unnecessary troubles.

What result should you seek?

This is the result you should look for. No chemical or bubble reaction on quartz stone.

We hope this tip can help you filter out the unwanted quartz stones.

Disclaimer

This method cannot guarantee you find genuine quartz stone.

Some low content quartz stones can resist Harpic 10x up to 30 min or more.