Pros, cons of concrete counters
Scripps Howard News Service
Artist and designer Fu-Tung Cheng has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1978, when he bought a 1,200-square-foot home in Albany. He embarked almost immediately on a remodeling project that led to the construction of his first experimental kitchen counter – a disaster.
“I had more time than money,” he said. He knew nothing of molding forms and little of the alchemy of concrete and its near-magical properties: It solidifies within hours but continues to harden as it ages over 100 years. But he knew he could afford it.
It’s relatively inexpensive – six $6 sacks of Quickcrete or Sakrete concrete and water can make about a 3-by 8-foot kitchen counter. Concrete is mostly rock, sand and a little cement, which is high-fired crystallized lime that hardens when water is added. You can add colors to it when it is wet, or stain it later.
Cheng still lives in the same home and is now the author of three show-and-tell books from Taunton Press on the subject of pouring concrete counters. His latest, “Concrete Countertops Made Simple,” is both a book and a 25-minute DVD for $21.95.
When Cheng started, he could have used a teacher like himself to understand just how easy yet complex it would be.
“Hand troweling a smooth finish is virtually impossible,” says the veteran of countless concrete counters. Pouring concrete into a smooth upside-down mold made of cheap laminated plywood, he discovered, was the way to go. The top would be nearly flawlessly smooth. Judging by his weekend seminars on the subject, which at $500 a person are always filled to capacity, it is a craft many might try at home in belt-tightening times.
“One of the things I like about concrete for counters is that it ties into the idea of a ‘locally grown’ material,” Cheng said. “While the production of concrete is energy-consuming, it is also heavy to transport, so it is almost always made locally and sent over very short distances. It is often composed of gravel in local quarries.”
“Compare that to stone from India, Brazil and China, and concrete’s carbon footprint looks very good,” Cheng said.
And concrete lasts as long as stone, he said. Three decades later, “I still have the same counters, and people still go ‘wow!’”