At Granite Concepts we pride ourselves in only

Granite is an igneous rock made from magma, formed over millions of years and is part of the earth's continental crust.Rocks near the core of the earth melt and form magma. As this magma rises it cools and crystallises, forming granite. Because the magma cools so slowly the granite keeps its crystallised effect. The exact minerals that go into forming granite vary from region to region but they commonly include quartz and feldspar. Quartz is in itself a naturally occurring rock, but quartz worktops are generally made of specially-engineered stone made up of a mix of crushed rock and coloured pigments. Granites can be pink to dark grey or black, depending on their chemistry and mineralogy, whereas engineered quartz comes in a much wider range of colours.

All our granite is sourced from quarries in India, Italy and Brazil. Because granite is so hard it has traditionally been very difficult - and therefore expensive - to mine, involving explosives and hard manual labour. Today technology has made the whole process quicker and easy, with heavy duty machinery and diamond saws doing the bulk of the work. In turn this has made granite mining more economical and granite worktops more affordable.

At the stone yard the huge blocks of granite are cut into slabs. The blocks of raw material have each been given a shipping number documenting where they were mined. It is only when the granite is cut, with diamond tipped saws, that its true colours are revealed for the first time. The granite slabs are cut to industry-standard thicknesses which may be the eventual thickness of your kitchen worktop. At Granite Concepts we offer granite worktops in thicknesses of 30mm and 40mm. Granite slabs from Brazil are particularly colourful and eye-catching, with the more traditional pink, grey and black granites coming from Europe and India.

Next the granite is polished and given its trademark shine. Traditionally the only way to polish granite was to rub one stone against another using sand and water as an abrasive. Now machinery has refined the process and allows for greater control and degrees of polish. The mechanical polishers pass over the granite several times, sing finer and finer grades of abrasives each time, just as when you sand a table.

Granite Concepts imports the polished slabs to its modern, purpose built factory in the north of England. The slabs are then cut to size according to each customer's requirements. This is a skilled job as granite is very hard, second only to diamond. When we take an order we always do a 'template' first to ensure we cut with exact precision. The slabs of granite are cut with diamond-tipped saws and the special machinery cuts out holes (known as cut-outs) where we need to leave space for hobs and sinks. We can also cut grooves into the granite to ake a drainer.

Finally your kitchen worktop is ready to leave the factory. We promise to install your worktop within 4 weeks of taking your order and once we've made that promise we know just how important it is to keep it.Our professional team of fitters will install your worktop and fit sinks and units as required. Installation normally takes less than a day.

After that it's simply up to you to invite your friends and family round to admire it!