Granite countertop prices
 

We're hoping to replace our laminate countertop with granite in our Alton home. Can anyone recommend an installer that has reasonable prices? We stopped at a place on Route 11, somewhere between the Alton traffic circle and the Walmart in Rochester, I can't recall the name of the place, but they were very high priced in my opinion. I know back home, we were able to get granite installed for far less than what they sell it for at Home Depot & Lowe's by going to an independent granite contractor. Is that not the case here around the lake too? Thanks for your input.

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Those guys are extremely high. I had them quote a job for me 8 years ago. i wound up getting someone in Concord to do it for about 30-35 percent less. I actual had a piece of granite tagged at a place in Massachusetts by the first fabricator and we used the same slab with the second fabricator again at 30+% less! I'm on vacation so I don't have my records here but I'll track down the fabricator I used when I'm home.

Try Rumford Stone in Bow. Did our kitchen this past winter. Very pleased with their work. As you may know price is stone dependent


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Thanks so much for your kind replies, I'm encouraged to hear that someone else thought that place on route 11 was high too... I was beginning to think I had to scrap my dream of getting a granite counter.

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We actually got a granite called St. Cecelia for $39.00 sqft installed back home. and that same exact granite was somewhere around $62 sqft at home depot... that's a huge difference in price. I'm hoping that we'll find something close up here.

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I used Rumford Stone for granite in 5 kitchens in rental property in Laconia. Good work and a good price. Prior to that, I had Lowes do the counters in one kitchen and it had to be redone three times, but I guess that depends on the person doing the template and the installer.

I am not sure if this number/person is still a good contact for Rumford but their sales woman in the area was Tiffany: 603-224-9876

Rumford Stone
 

Installation prices are reasonable and they will install anywhere in NH. Huge disparity in stone prices so you need to shop around the various stones.

They do have a remnant area. If you can find a slab you can use, you can save a lot of money!

Granite is out. Quartz is in. Just saying...

I'll take that under advisement! Lol. I heard quartz is more expensive though no?

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That's good, maybe Granite prices will drop if Quartz becomes popular. I'm looking to do my kitchen in the next couple years and would like granite to come down in price. NH is the granite state. It just wouldn't be right to use Quartz.

R.E. Marble and Granite out of Temple NH.
They came to do our place in Laconia this year, fast, professional, lifetime sealant. They also have a large yards of remnants from other large jobs, we were able to get a full slab remnant to do our kitchen and price was far less than if wasn't considered a remnant. if you go to their website they have about 9 pages of remnants. Also I found their prices to be extremely reasonable and better than those so called wholesalers or best price guys out there. They might give you the best price on the granite, but all their fees and everything put them over the top price wise

Granite...
 

We put in a new kitchen and bathrooms in our primary home a couple years ago. Worked with a local kitchen/bath contractor. While he had the small granite samples in his office, the absolute best advice he gave us was to go to his granite yard subcontractor and pick out the exact slab we wanted. What we found is that the color palette in the sample could be VASTLY different than what was in the slab itself. Note that this is with natural granite.

The other advice he gave us is that different granites come in different slab lengths. So, depending on whether or not you want seams in your countertops, that may guide you into what color & slab you pick.

The other advantage of going to the granite yard was that we were able to pick out remnants for our bathroom vanity counters, saving a lot of $$

As for quartz vs granite, we did consider quartz as it was less money, but it felt very plastic-like and cheap. It also does not have the same high-heat tolerance that granite does, (taking hot pans out of the oven or off of the stove....) Certainly nothing wrong with quartz, but it wasn't for us.

Anyway, bottom line is that I would recommend finding a local kitchen/bath contractor who is knowledgeable, reputable, and will let you go to his granite yard. Home Depot/Lowes, etc, will not do this.

Try Bob's Granite Place in Epsom.

Do not call Integrity Stone! Total, and I mean TOTAL nightmare. It could not have gone worse for us....

We had granite counter tops installed this spring in West Alton. We dealt with Connie Grant at Kitchen Encounters in Laconia. She was very knowledgeable and straight forward to deal with.
http://kitchen-encounters.com/

We brought in a dimension-ed diagram and photos of the kitchen that showed cabinets, walls and floor. She then made some suggestions and gave us samples to take home. A few days later we dropped off the rejects and picked up some more followed by Connie coming to the house a few days later. By then we had made a choice which she thought a good match and she checked the dimensions to give us a price. It was about $62/sq ft for our chosen color.

Then she scheduled a viewing at Stone Creations in Northwood which was very worthwhile. We needed 67 sq ft including an island so two slaps were required and they were lined up for us to look at.

Overall the process was smooth and we are very pleased with the final product

So why go through all of that as opposed to just picking something in the store and just scheduling the install? Well a good sum of money is involved and the end product will right there in front of you for a long time. It will pay to take your time and get it right. We found that working with Connie helped us zero in on a choice.

I completely support inspecting the slabs before cutting. One job that we did in Rochester ended up with a huge vein in the middle of our island. In a black countertop it stood out and looked like crap.

I suggest that you also look at and price quartz. We had granite in our former home and when we built up here, we looked at and priced both products. We decided to have Cambria quartz installed. There is a vast selection of designs and it is far easier to maintain than granite and in our 5 years of use, more durable than granite. It may also be available in larger dimensions so seams can be avoided.

We used Rumford Stone for the Cambria and installation. Great crew.

Winni, I love some of the quartz but was told it stains easier. Have you found this to be true?

Tis. No not at all. In fact the granite in the old house had stains after a few years, despite the best sealer. The Cambria has none and it cleans up great with Windex with vinegar. When we priced it, the quartz was competitive with mid grade granite and cheaper than high end granite. Our island is over 8 feet long and it is a single piece.

Shaker Hill Granite
 

Shaker Hill Granite in Enfield has been great to work with and very reasonably priced. They have their slabs on site for you to pick from.


http://www.shakerhillgranite.com/

I guess it depends on the Granite. I've had granite on my counter for 10 years now. We sealed it once when they first installed it but it's never been resealed since. We've spilled grape juice , cranberry juice, and many other fluids that are known to stain but nothing. As a matter of fact the finish carpenter that did my kitchen told us that his parents had that same granite and it was all stained after a few years.

My kitchen granite is pretty old and isn't stained at all. Right next to the sink I don't think it is as shiny as it used to be though. I like the shine. I also have a marble floor that I would love to have finished with a diamond blade but cannot seem to find somebody to do that.

Thank you for the warning.

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We have worked with Rumford Stone in Concord on three separate occasions. Once with soapstone for our home and then for granite at the camp. They have always done a great job.


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I would seriously look into the reviews online of some of these granite places (Yelp, BBB, etc. etc.). I had a nightmare of a time with one of them while a few others were fantastic to work with...

Suggestion: When using Yelp for reviews, make sure to click on "XX other reviews that are not currently recommended" as for some reason YELP only posts ones that are recommended. I like to read all revies as some people are just complainers and others have a lot of validity. In one case, Yelp tells you they are a 5 out of 5 starts with 6 reviews. However, there are 29 others, with 75% that are negative that aren't recommended (I have no idea why). Not sure how that works, as they should have a 1.5 out of 5 stars.... Just make sure to read through everything and dig a little deeper than what' on the cover. Just my .02

Shaker Hill
 

I have a neighbor that used Shaker Hill and his counters are gorgeous and his opinion of them is phenomenal.

Thanks everybody! You've been helpful.

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I don't know about the lake area, however there is a great variation in granite price from the low end to the high end. That said we did granite in a Boston condo in 2004, good amount of granite which cost $8,000. Forward to the last kitchen we did about 4 years ago using the same granite, Columbo, different contractor from RI and probably larger amount of stone including the edging and lifetime sealing. Cost $5,300. These people are from Spain and did a superb job.
We were told in Boston that most don't use the Columbo because of cost.
Wonder why?
I need to take pictures in case of a loss. Love the flow. Remember when on another thread when someone said "granite flows?".

I am a retired workaholic and continuing aquaholic.

There are so many more granite shops now than there were in 2004 so healthy competition brings prices down.

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Just bringing back this thread as I have decided to do my kitchen over ahead of schedule so I'm looking for someone to do the counter tops. I'm doing the kitchen over myself so I'm only looking for granite companies.
Does anyone have any others that they can recommend other than what's already mentioned, Rumford and Bob's? I'm in Meredith.

Middleton Lumber
 

See Peter Kirk on excellent and professional advise on local suppliers and contractors. He had saved me tons of money through the years.

Bobs did my kitchen and did a phenomenal job. From he time I ordered the granite they were at my house in three days to measure the template. Then two days later they were there to install countertops and sink! $33/sq ft installed! All without an issue. No brainer.


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Thanks, I was leaning towards visiting Bobs and you just convinced me to do so. That seems like a pretty fair price. :)

take the trip to R.E. Marble and Granite in Temple as well
will be very happy and plus they have tons of remnants, a lot of them are full sheets

Just an update on my granite counter tops. After visited a few locations in NH I ended up shopping in Mass for my granite. There are so many more installers in Mass than in NH so competition is fierce. None of the shops in NH came close to the prices I got in Mass.
I found some shops charge an extra delivery fee for going to NH but in most cases it was still cheaper.
Since it was my second home and I could be patient I found a place in Woburn Mass that didn't charge extra for that travel distance but I had to wait 4 weeks for the install and the installation was canceled and rescheduled a few times, ie, they kept putting me at the bottom of the install pile. :laugh:
They did try to squeeze me for an extra $200 for a quicker delivery but I called their bluff and refused.
When all said and done I got my Granite counters done for $1600 when the next closest price was $2300. I had some estimates up to $3200, double what I paid.:eek:

What place did you end up with in MA?

BR Stone. Great price but you have to be patient. They are a high volume shop. The salesman promises you the world but then you have to deal with the shop manager who doesn't care what the salesman promised.
But the installers were top notch and did a great job.
If your on a time constraint then this is not the shop to use if you're house is far away because they will put you on the back burner until they are ready.

Sounds to me like you got a shop that was willing to give it to you for basically cost, if they could use you as a filler. Win/ win. Congrats

So, why not just use formica otherwise known as plastic laminate, which is very durable, good look'n, comes in 100's of colors/styles, not too expensive, is easy to clean and maintain like every six months with an aerosol can of formica magic!

Seems like natural granite is good if you want to live that Neanderthal life in a dirty, rocky cave. For thel 21st century, modern home, it wants to be www.formica.com!

And another thing, talking about kitchens, like why bother with plastic saran wrap when old, easy-to-use, wax paper works mucho betterer. :eek:

Maybe I should have just gone to Walmart and bought some contact paper. I could have updated my 1980's kitchen for 50 bucks and in 30 years I could just rip off the contact paper and it would be back in style again. It seems like 1950's kitchens are coming back around now.
Better yet, a buddy of mine has 60 acres in Rumney with a lot of granite outcroppings. Maybe I should have taken a couple weeks off from my business and gone up an just cut myself a free slab. What do you think FLL?
It seems to me that you're the one living the Neanderthal life.

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I did choose one of the lesser priced granite slabs. I'm sure they still made money on me. My guess is one of those slabs cost them about $400 and the slab warehouse probably gets it for $200. The rest is all labor because I supplied my own sink.

Attachment 13574Still waiting for the dishwasher. Two new Anderson sliding windows and tile back splash will be done when the weather warms up.

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Looks great. Well done.

Biggd - Why do you bother with FLL? he's just putting the bait out there and seeing who bites. Ignore him and maybe he'll go away. :eek:

He's not going away. Have you seen how many posts he has? He's like a hemorrhoid, painfully irritating.

That looks really classy, good choice in color too. Very well done. Really goes well with the cabinets.

Looks very reasonable for $1600.

Attachment 13588This was what it looked like before. 1980's cabinets that were falling apart.

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Looks great, Enjoy!!!!!

Thank you all. The members of this forum are very helpful with information. :cheers: