Kitchen cabinet question.

[James Keeler]

My wife and I are in the planning stages of redoing our kitchen. She wants to reuse the existing cabinets but install a Silestone countertop instead of the exist laminate. From what I can see the existing cabinets appear to have been built in place using normal contract cabinet methods; i.e., MDF and other margin improvement materials.

My question now is, "is there enopugh weight difference between the lamnate and Silestone so that some sort of reinforcing is necessary?" I am particularly worried about a 5 foot section of counter top where the only support on one edge appears to be the face frame, and that is nailed to the base.

[Cecil Arnold]

Maybe Mark Singer knows the weight difference of the two tops meantioned, but off the top of my head I don't think it is very much. Remember, MDF weighs in at almost 100 lbs per 3/4" sheet and most of the artificial surfaces are 1/2" so my gut feeling is that it would be a wash. The last cabs I built were Silestone topped and they didn't use an underlayment.

[Mark Singer]

James,

Granite is about 15 lbs to 20 /sf. at 3/4" thick...so it is about 6 to 10 times heavier thaen MDF. I am not sure of the Silestone. If it is a manmade composite using srone as a matrix ,,, like Cesear stone than the weight will be similar. I descourage placing expensive stone over not so great cabinets. The stone is expensive and the best you can do after it is in place is re-face them. We spec a 5/8" ply sub top which distributes the load....most cabinets will support it. If they are so-so...it is probably reason to change the cabinets,

[Todd Burch]

James, most plastic laminate countertops have a 1 1/2" substrate - two layers of particle board, or ply, maybe MDF, but probably not, since it doesn't do so well with water and plastic laminate has seams.

So, your 3/4" Silestone is going to need an underlayment as well, so the height will be proper. I would bet Mark Singer's left "you know what" ( , ) that the cabinets would hold up just fine.

Here's how to test. Call the biggest guy you know over and have him jump up and down on the existing countertops. If your cabinets fall in, RUN LIKE HECK, because he'll be mad, and then put in new cabinets before you go for the Silestone.

There is nothing stopping you from reinforcing the cabinets while you have the old tops off. You could run a wider cleat along the walls at the backs of the cabinets, amongst other techniques.

[James Keeler]

It sounds like it would be safest to reinforce the cabinet once I get the top off. After all I've been told it doesn't cost anything if you do it yourself.

[Alan Turner]

The only "cost" would be the purchase of the new tools required for this specialized job, and many here would not exactly complain about that. (: