The Case of the Brittle Countertop
Hear this story read aloud.
A Slow Morning Turns Interesting
It was a slow Tuesday morning at the diner. I was sitting at the counter, sipping burnt coffee and trading bad jokes with Flo, the waitress who’s been serving me the same plate of overcooked eggs since the Clinton administration. She had that look again, the one that meant she was about to tell me about her sister’s “friend” with a marble problem. Before she could finish her sentence, my phone buzzed.
“Are you the stone detective?” a woman’s voice asked. “My countertop is crumbling.”
“Crumbling?” I asked, trying to picture a granite top turning to dust. “You mean cracked?”
“No, it’s literally falling apart. Pieces are flaking off. It’s brittle.”
That word, brittle, got my attention. Granite isn’t supposed to be brittle unless something’s gone really wrong. I told Flo to keep the coffee warm and headed out.
The Brittle Countertop
When I got to the client’s home, I saw it right away. The countertop was a dark, speckled granite, and the section under the kitchen window looked like it had been baking in the sun for years. Small chips were popping loose, and the surface had a dull, chalky look. She wasn’t exaggerating—it really was falling apart.
I ran my fingers across the surface, and the top layer felt rough, almost like dried glue. That’s when it hit me. This wasn’t the granite giving out. It was the resin.
Resin and Sunlight: A Bad Combination
Many granites, especially the more porous or fissured ones, get treated at the factory with a polyester resin to fill pits and cracks. Under normal conditions, that resin does a good job of strengthening the slab. But polyester doesn’t age well when it’s exposed to UV light.
Sunlight breaks down the chemical bonds, and over time it turns hard, brittle, and discolored—just like what I was seeing here.
I checked the rest of the kitchen. The shaded areas were perfectly fine, still glossy and solid. Only the section near the window was crumbling. Mystery solved.
Explaining the Problem
I explained what was happening. The stone itself was fine; it was the resin that was breaking down from years of sun exposure. Once that happens, there’s not much you can do except remove the damaged surface and refinish it, or replace that section entirely.
She looked shocked. “So sunlight did this?”
“Yep,” I said. “Granite’s tough, but the resin they use to pretty it up isn’t. Think of it like sunscreen. The stone doesn’t need it, but the filler does. Unfortunately, nobody tells you that when they sell you the slab.”
The Fix
I gave her a few options:
- Install a UV-blocking film on the window
- Refinish the surface with a UV-stable resin
- Replace it entirely with a resin-free stone
Back to the Diner
On my way out, I called Flo to let her know I’d be back for lunch. She laughed and said, “Lemme guess, another cracked case?”
“Not cracked,” I said. “Just brittle.”
And with that, I headed back to my favorite stool at the diner, where the coffee’s bad, the company’s good, and the next mystery is always just a phone call away.
