Gilasi Recycled and Locally-sourced Surfaces

We have had nothing but problems with the Gilasi countertop. The main problem is that the material cannot be sealed and remains porous despite significant efforts by a number of professionals over the last 7 months. We have had 2 different sets of material, 2 authorized fabricators, and 4 different sealing methods, each with the assurance from Gilasi that the latest would work. None of them have. We remain with water soaking into the countertop and leaving dark marks for hours, until it evaporates. Anything oily or with color - a bit of oil, a drop of ice tea or red wine - leaves a permanent mark on the countertop.

The last fabricator has indicated that they believe that the material simply cannot be sealed, and has said they will no longer handle the product. And another reseller of this product has since told us that they no longer recommend Gilasi for high traffic areas because they had a number of customers with sealing issues.

Gilasi changed their material formulation from first set of material to the second, and also changed their recommended sealing process. They seem aware that they do not have the product quite right, but also seem entirely comfortable selling this to consumers at top dollar and then blaming any issues on the fabricators. We could not even get anyone from Gilasi to come look at the counters, and all email correspondence ended with - "any issues you have with the counter you need to take up with your installer" - despite one authorized and trained installer following Gilasi's instructions to the letter, and then another authorized and trained installer following a different set of instructions just as diligently.

We also found that along a seam that need to be made, that slabs are of different thicknesses, and vary from front to back. This is due to inconsistency in their pouring process, and makes it almost impossible to create a flat seam. There are also surface imperfections that cannot be removed that appear to come from deep in the material to the surface. Gilasi's answer - These are issues for the fabricator to address.

Sadly, we bought Gilasi because of the green premise, and now will have two complete countertops in a landfill when we complete replacement with a conventional material. We believe that Gilasi mis-uses the green concept to provide a smoke screen for an inferior product, and then couples poor customer service with blaming anyone else they can for their own shortcomings. We strongly recommend that people do not use this product.