We built our home recently and our builder works with Empire. We upgraded our countertops to "White Ice", which cost more but we wanted something different and we loved it! The installers were great and at first glance the granite looked great. But from the time we did our walk through in the beginning of December, 2020, to the time we moved in, which was about a week (only a few weeks after the granite install), the countertops developed blotches of orange, small and larger all over. I honestly thought the crew spilled spaghetti sauce and it stained. Not the case. I am really disappointed as they are consistent all over. I understand granite is a natural stone and this happens, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly and so broadly. We spent a lot of money and this is our forever home so of course it bothered me. After discussing with our builder, they contacted Empire and Empire sent a very nice gentleman to look at it. He did tell me this wasn't his area of expertise and hadn't seen this before so he called another associate at Empire. He then tried a paste to "remove" or "diminish" the "stains". After it couldn't be corrected, he called the person at Empire back. After that, he said that the person he spoke to would try to look into other options to correct the discoloring and someone would reach back out. That never happened and when I asked the builder, they reached out and this was the response the builder received:
"I was not aware that we were suppose to call him. We left at the point that our guy explained that this is in the stone and there is nothing we can do about it. IT was in the stone at the layout. They saw the layout . I know customer is saying that it is getting bigger but we compared pictures of what it was and what it is now and nothing has changed.
Natural stone has rust spots in them sometimes and that is what it is. Also the only thing we could do is dig it up from the stone and fill it with resin. But that would be a lot of extra work and extra cost. And I would not warranty that job because you are ruining natural stone to fill it up with something else. "
So..... first.... we didn't even get close enough to the slab to see rust spots at the layout and we weren't even able to compare to any other slabs. It was placed against the wall about 15 ft. Away from us. We were told that was our countertop and shown on a computer where the seams would be. It took all of 5 minutes and my husband and I both took off of work to go.
Second, the "guy" never told me anything except that we would hear back from someone.
Third, I have pictures of the countertops when initially installed and the did not have those stains, at least not as noticeable at all!
So I spoke to another company who said the specific granite, Whittle ice, is more prone to this and someone should have explained that to us. We wanted Quartz, the girl basically told us it would cost a lot mor and didn't even show us, she directed us to the granite instead.
While it may not look that bad to some, when you're expecting one thing and get something else, on top of the addition money spent, it matters. Then to see a response like that? That's how you treat your customers? I don't appreciate the fact that whomever sent that email eluded to the fact that I was never told I'd get a call back, basically calling me a liar! I'm not a liar, I'm a paying customer.
I never heard another word from Empire, I even sent an email directly. I was going to let this go but after speaking to others, and getting more info from another company, I decided that I am right to be upset. So I'm going to share my experience as much as I can so others are more careful and aware when they are shopping. read more