Material guide
Both are man-made, both come in sheet form and both are sold as an alternative to natural stone. They are not interchangeable, and the difference usually shows up in the joint rather than in the colour card.
Engineered quartz is pressed from a high proportion of mineral aggregate bound with resin, then polished. Solid surface is a cast acrylic-based sheet. Our plant runs both: quartz on pressing lines and solid surface on automatic casting lines, with a maximum cast width of 1.52 m.
That difference in process drives everything else. A pressed quartz slab is hard, heavy and available in jumbo formats up to 3200 × 1800 mm. A cast solid surface sheet is lighter, comes in a narrower width, and can be worked with ordinary workshop tooling rather than stone-cutting equipment.
Kitchen worktops, islands, bathroom vanities, floors and wall cladding are the usual destinations for quartz. It is the material to specify when the surface has to take daily wear, when the client wants a stone-like figure, or when a large uninterrupted area matters. Our range runs from bold veined Calacattas to completely plain whites and greys, in 15, 20 and 30 mm.
The published type-test values for the product family cover water absorption, Mohs hardness, flexural and compressive strength, abrasion, stain resistance and thermal expansion, tested to JC/T 908-2013 grade A. Those figures are on the specifications page with the report reference, and they are the document to hand a specifier who asks for measured performance.
Solid surface is chosen when the joint is the problem. Because the material is homogeneous and can be bonded and sanded, long counters, curved reception desks, integrated basins and upstands can be built with seams that are far less visible than a stone joint. It is also the easier material to rework or repair on site if something is damaged after installation.
The trade-off is format and feel. The cast width is narrower, the surface does not have the same stone-like depth or hardness, and a client expecting a heavy polished slab will not read it as one. It is a different specification, not a cheaper version of quartz.
Ask how many joints the design has. A long L-shaped kitchen run in quartz will have a visible seam at the corner and at any aperture; the same run in solid surface can be built to read as one continuous piece. On a single island with a clean rectangular plan, the quartz joint is a non-issue and the harder surface wins.
Ask the second question about the edge. A chunky solid edge, a mitred downstand or a profiled front all favour quartz. An integrated cove upstand, a moulded basin or a tight radius favours solid surface. If the drawing shows both a stone-like edge and a seamless curved counter, one of them has to give.
Our quartz range is the larger of the two: over 100 colourways with 87 listed online and colour matching available against a physical sample. We also produce acrylic solid surface and, from the same plant, sinks and baths — so a project that specifies quartz worktops, solid surface vanity tops and integrated basins can be sourced from one supplier and one set of documents.
That does not mean one container should carry everything. Slab packing, minimum order per colour and the loading plan are calculated per material and per colour, so it is worth sending the full schedule at enquiry stage rather than adding a second material after the container is booked.
The engineered quartz page describes the slabs and formats; the solid surface and sinks and baths pages cover the cast sheet and the sanitary ware. The specifications page carries the formats, loading table and measured values, and the colours page shows the quartz range. If you are deciding between the two for a particular drawing, send the plan and the joinery details and we will tell you which one we would specify and why.
Enquiry
Send the colour codes, the square metres, the thickness and the destination port. We reply with a price, a packing plan and a lead time.
