What to Bring to a Stone Slab Yard Before You Pick

Bring your countertop measurements with a rough layout sketch, a cabinet door or finish sample, a piece of your floor and wall color, a tape measure and your phone. The samples show how the stone sits in your room, and the sketch shows whether your pieces fit the slab.

The shop's process page asks for the width, length and depth of the countertops and a rough layout, with the sink, cooking surface and backsplash drawn in, so it can give a written estimate from measurements. The same drawing works at the yard.

• Measurements and a layout sketch with the sink, cooktop, island and any seating overhang marked.
• A cabinet door or drawer front, plus a sample of any backsplash tile.
• A piece of your flooring and your wall paint color. Polycor suggests waiting to order tile until you have seen it beside the stone.
• A tape measure, to check each piece of your layout against the slab's length and width.
• Model numbers for the sink and cooktop if chosen, since cutout sizes follow those products.
• Your phone, to photograph each slab flat on and from the side, with its tag and slab number.
• Closed shoes. Dynamic Stone Tools says not to walk between tightly stored slabs or lean on stored stone, and to let yard staff move slabs out for you.

Sources for this section: 10 11. On this site: How the shop's process works.

Because every natural slab is different and a sample shows only a small piece of one. Use Natural Stone advises visiting stone yards to look at the actual slabs you will use, so you see the color, veining and movement that runs through the whole slab.

Pacific Shore Stones notes that slabs in a bundle can vary, so the one at the front may not match the one you get. One quartz maker, HanStone, says in a 2013 bulletin that samples cannot show all the variations and are a general indication only.

Look at the slab upright, then step back and look again. Polycor notes that slabs look more intense standing up than they will once installed flat, and suggests a slightly overcast day, because midday sun creates glare and wet stone looks darker. Dynamic Stone Tools suggests viewing the full slab from 6 to 8 feet away first, then close up.

Ask about the finish too. Polycor says most slabs are offered polished only, so ask whether a honed or leathered finish is possible.

Sources for this section: 1 9 10 11 12.

Often yes, but call first. Staff move heavy slabs with forklifts, so Pacific Shore Stones says you often need to schedule a visit, though staff may accommodate walk-ins. Policies differ, and the sources read for this article do not say which yards sell to homeowners, so ask whether the yard sells to the public or only through a fabricator.

The shop's contact page lists warehouses it cooperates with and says to call the shop for an appointment. Its process page invites buyers to visit its stone yard and says staff will help you choose the material. Which location holds the slab you want is a question to ask when you call. If you pick a slab at a yard on your own, ask the shop how it handles a slab you chose elsewhere.

Use Natural Stone reports that fabricators recommend you visit their shop too, not only a showroom. If your fabricator cannot come, send photos that show the slab number and ask them to confirm the layout before you commit.

Sources for this section: 3 9 11. On this site: How the shop works with you.

Stand the slab upright in good light and follow every line. Dynamic Stone Tools describes a fissure as a tightly closed natural separation with no open gap, and a crack as a fracture that happened after quarrying, open and gapping. Its backlight test: hold a light under the slab in a dim room and look from above. Light travels evenly along a fissure, while a crack shows irregular dark edges and often changes width. Pits are small holes you can feel.

Use Natural Stone says you and the fabricator can place pits or fissures in a less prominent section. Polycor adds that you should feel the surface for inclusions, pits and fissures, since the finish affects daily use.

Position matters more than the mark. Dynamic Stone Tools says to look hardest at fissures near seams, sink corners and cooktop openings, and to mark them so the templater avoids those zones. It also calls a crack under a sink cutout or through a seam a structural concern. Whether a mark is safe in a given spot is a call for your fabricator, not a buyer or a web page. Inspect edges and faces for chips, scratches and corner breaks too.

Ask whether the slab was resin treated. A 2003 Stone World article explains that resin fills cracks and pits, and that one of its first noticeable effects is a darkening of the whole surface. It also says epoxy tends to soften at high temperatures.

Sources for this section: 3 7 8 9 10.

Decide it with your fabricator before you pay. Use Natural Stone's fabricator piece advises putting the best part of the slab in the most visible areas, such as an island. Its countertop guide says to identify the section of the slab so the best part does not wind up as a left-over cutting. Ask staff to tag or mark your section, and photograph it.

Seams are part of the same choice, and our seams guide covers them. At the yard, Polycor suggests placing seams inside sink or cooktop cutouts where less surface shows, and warns that matching veins across a full seam is very difficult. It gives typical sink cutout margins of about 4 inches of stone in front and 5 behind.

A bookmatched layout, where two slabs mirror each other, needs two slabs. Use Natural Stone warns that if one slab is lost to breakage, the whole layout can be lost, so settle that with the yard and fabricator before anyone cuts.

Ask for the shop's own waste allowance, since your layout and vein direction decide it. A stone-tool supplier also advises choosing slabs from within the same bundle whenever possible.

Sources for this section: 2 3 4 9 10. On this site: Where seams go.

Mostly yes, with one extra: the lot. Use Natural Stone says manufactured materials are usually consistent within one dye lot, and that variation between batches can cause installation or service problems. If your job needs more than one slab, ask for slabs from the same lot and look at them side by side.

HanStone's 2013 bulletin tells fabricators to obtain slabs from the same lot number, inspect them even then, and place them side by side. It says slabs with a noticeable variation within one lot will be replaced only if no cutting or installation has taken place. That is one brand's policy, so ask the shop for the policy on your slab before anything is cut.

The same bulletin tells fabricators to pay special attention to veined patterns and their direction. Ask which way the pattern runs on each slab.

Sources for this section: 5 12. On this site: Quartz countertops at the shop.

Write down the slab number, the yard, the section you chose and anything the staff pointed out. Then get that choice into your written contract. New Jersey's consumer brief says contracts above a set dollar amount in state law must be written, and that the contract should state the name brands or quality grades of materials to be used.

The same brief says contractors must register with the Division of Consumer Affairs, and that registration is not an endorsement. It also lists, as a warning sign, a contractor who asks for more than a third of the total payment before work can begin. Compare any shop's required deposit with that line. Our fabricator guide covers the full check.

Choosing the slab sets up the next step. The shop's process page counts its 3 to 5 business days from the time it has a deposit and picked-out slabs, and our timeline guide explains the rest.

• Yard name, slab number and a photo of the tag.
• The section you chose, as tagged or marked by staff and photographed.
• Lot number, for quartz and other engineered slabs.
• Every fissure, pit or resin note the staff mentioned.
• Who agreed to what, and on what date.

Sources for this section: 13. On this site: How to choose a countertop fabricator in New Jersey, Template to install timeline, Talk to the shop.

More on this site: how the shop's process runs from estimate to install, granite options, quartz options and talk to the shop.