If you’re investing in Winnipeg quartz countertops, you’ll want to make sure that you know how to care for them properly. Quartz countertops are beautiful and stylish, but are quite expensive. That means that you’ll want to use proper care and cleaning techniques to keep them in great shape for the years and decades to come.
Interested in tips for caring for quartz countertops? You’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll discuss all the basics of what you need to know about quartz countertop care, cleaning, and maintenance. Let’s begin.
1. Always Clean Up Spills Immediately
Quartz is extremely tough, durable, and dense, and it resists stains from spills, even from things like red wine, coffee, and other such darkly-colored, tough-to-remove foods and beverages. However, it is not invulnerable to staining. If you leave a stain and let it dry without cleaning it, it may eventually discolor the underlying material, particularly if it’s lighter in color.
Clean up spills immediately, and use a glass cleaner or all-purpose cleaner to remove any residue. This will prevent staining.
2. Wipe Clean With A Damp Cloth After Using
It’s a good practice to wipe down your countertops every day – usually, after you cook dinner. This helps keep stains, sticky gunk, and crumbs from building up on your countertop. Just moisten a rag or paper towel, and run it across your countertops, picking up dust, debris, and liquid spills.
3. Avoid Direct Contact With Hot Dishes And Pots
Quartz is a very durable material, but it still should not be exposed to high, direct heat from hot pans or pots that have just come out of the oven, electric skillets, and other such heat sources. Use a trivet, dish towel, or a rubber mat to keep the heat from contacting the countertop directly.
Why? Because although quartz easily resists temperatures up to 300°F or higher, it is vulnerable to thermal shock, which occurs when a hot area is quickly cooled, or vice versa. This can cause cracking.
For example, if you place a cold pitcher of ice water on an area of your countertop after a blazing-hot cast iron skillet is removed, the quartz structure could crack, due to the extreme temperature differential. This is rare in high-quality quartz, but it’s still best to avoid the risk.
4. Don’t Cut Directly On The Quartz Surface – Use A Cutting Board
Despite popular belief, quartz is not scratch-proof. It’s simply highly scratch-resistant, and you can easily buff scratches out with polish.
Because of this, it’s best to avoid using knives directly on a quartz countertop. Use a cutting board for slicing, dicing, and other knife-heavy tasks. Repetitive cutting on the countertop can cause some minor scratching.
Not only that, quartz tends to dull knives, so you can actually damage your high-quality knives and dull their edge if you don’t use a cutting board, which is not ideal.
5. Take Care With Heavy Objects To Avoid Chipping
Chipping is rare in most quartz countertops, but it can happen on the edges of the counter, especially if a heavy object is slammed or placed heavily down on the surface. The impact may cause small pieces of quartz to shear off. So be careful when placing extremely heavy items, like cast iron skillets, on your countertops, to make sure they stay in great shape!
Keep Your Countertops Spic And Span – And Avoid Damage – With These Tips
Winnipeg quartz countertops are a fantastic investment. They can add a lot of value to your home, and they will last decades in your kitchen, ensuring you don’t have to pay to replace your counters for as long as you own your home.
So think about these care tips for quartz countertops, and start using them in your own home today, to make sure that you make the most of your investment.
