We’ve decided on a quartz countertop for a kitchen island in a vacation home. Three brands (Cambria, Silestone, and Corian/formerly Zodiac) are available to us. I read that Cambria is very environmentally friendly; don’t know anything about the other two except that Corian bought Zodiac and now sells quartz along with its other countertop material. All three had colors that we liked and worked in the kitchen. Anyone have experience with countertops from any of these three? Recommendation/comments welcome.
I have Cambria and it’s beautiful. Easy to take care of and always looks good.
We installed Cambria Berwyn about 2 years ago in House2. It looks gorgeous and is so easy to keep clean. I cook colorful veggies (just made a pot of borscht), and I don’t have to worry about beets staining the counters. The templater did a wonderful job making sure everything would fit perfectly. And everything did! We went with Costco’s installer. The price was competitive, and we got $$ back as a Costco cash card and then additional 3% as a rebate (because it is a Costco purchase and I paid with my Costco Visa).
Why wouldn’t you just go with granite?
^^ Quartz is more environmentally friendly and never needs sealing.
I have quartz Cambria and just love, love, love it! Its beautiful and so easy to care for.
I have also read form a real estate perspective if you are considering selling granite appeals to older buyers and quartz to younger buyers. Interesting.
We put in Silestone about 5 or 6 years ago and couldn’t be happier. It looks and wears great. No special care of any kind.
We have Silestone in our kitchen, going on 7 years now (I don’t think that we had access to any other brands of quartz counters).
Quartz counters are just granitic rocks that have been ground up and then glued back together with a polymer – you could call them “Engineered Granite” (like plywood, chipboard, and various laminated beams, etc…, are called “engineered wood”…).
We have white silestone in our hall bath and it still looks great.
I don’t like the way granite looks. Too busy.
Cambria’a product is 95%+ natural stone, and the rest is polymer binder. I am perfectly fine with that because it never needs sealing.
For a larger surface like our kitchen countertops, it would have been a pita to get matching pieces of veined granite… and uniformly speckled granite does not look much different than quartz… plus it adds a layer of maintenance.
BTW, we recently stayed in an upscale condo with dark leathered quartz, and I noticed that there was visible accumulation of dirt around the stove and sink that got embedded in the countertop, so if ease of maintenance is a factor, I would consider lighter quartz and/or polished.
A close friend had a horrible time with her Cambria counters. Not sure if it was an installer issue or the counter itself but she was never satisfied.
I would also stay away from the “leathered” look. Not practical for clean up.
Personally I love the look of natural stone but I can appreciate wanting maintenance free. I have quartz in my bathroom and love how easily it cleans up.
I wonder what “horrible time” means. Any details? Ours looks the same as it did two years ago, and the install was quick and professional.
How thick do you get quartz countertop?
Igloo, are you asking about price? It varies by locale and your project complexity.
I meant thickness. A typo
Got it! Dang phones. 
Depends. From Cambria site:
“Cambria is available in 1cm, 2cm and 3cm thicknesses. Various edge profiles can also create the appearance of a thicker slab.”
We have the 3 cm (inch plus) counters. We opted for a simple rounded edge. Anything thicker would be super heavy (and much more expensive). The thick granite you see in some places is not really that thick. It usually has some engineered edging making it look like it is 2 or even 3 inches thick. I don’t like that look.
Since 2011 or 2012 we have had kitchen countertops made of recycled materials from Silestone. They have held up great and I would purchase them again.
I believe the name of the product was different then https://www.silestoneusa.com/eco-line-series/
You cannot put a toaster oven or electric kettle directly on Cambria. You need to use trivets under these appliances and all hot appliances. I don’t use either one but there is always chatter on CC about toaster ovens.
@BunsenBurner - My friend first had issues with the counter not being the same color as the sample slab that she was shown and chose. She went back to the show room and showed them the slab and it was indeed not what they had delivered. Thankfully she stopped them the second the stone was in the house so they weren’t ripping anything out. Then when the correct stone was delivered, she said that the island had small pits all over it and the surface wasn’t smooth. The installer said that’s just how it is but no other pieces of her slab were like that. She ended up having to call Cambria directly after the installer wouldn’t address her concerns. After multiple visits and many, many months, Cambria finally agreed to put in some kind of filler that would smooth out the counter. She’s satisfied now but was extremely disappointed with the customer service of both the installer and Cambria.