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Can I Put A Toaster On A Quartz Countertop?

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If you love toasted bread, you must be wondering whether you can place your toaster on your quartz countertops. After all, you don’t want to damage your countertops, right?

Well, you shouldn’t place your toaster directly on your countertops without a protective barrier such as a trivet, glass cutting board, or ceramic tile to prevent the heat from transferring from the toaster to the countertops.

What happens when you place the toaster directly on the countertops?

Placing the toaster on the countertops without any form of precaution will bring about a number of issues such as:

Heat from the toaster will damage the polyester resin on the quartz

Quartz is an engineered stone created largely from tough minerals, usually consisting of 90% quartz stone and 10% polyester resin. The polyester resins hold or bind the quartz together, helping quartz to be one of the most durable materials on the market.

Unfortunately, the polyester resin in quartz can be easily damaged by heat from the toaster oven, electric frying pan, oven, crock pot, or any other appliance that produces a lot of heat.

The heat weakens the polyester resins when you place the toaster unprotected on the countertops. In the long term, the resins swell or even swell.

The toaster oven harms indoor air quality.

As you use your toaster, the heat produced by the appliance gets transmitted onto the countertop’s surface, where it emits harmful pollutants into the air.

This happens due to synthetic polyester resins releasing chemicals into the atmosphere.

The pollution from these chemicals can be anything from carbon monoxide to hydrocarbons that can cause respiratory problems, especially for people with asthma, pregnant, and infants, still in their growing stages.

The toaster dulls the countertops.

In most cases, when you use the toaster directly on the countertops, it makes the countertops duller. In some cases, the countertop begins to form stains, which, as you can guess, isn’t a good look.

How can you protect the countertops?

To prevent the dangers of placing the toaster directly on the countertops, you should protect the countertops from damage. How do you do it? Here is how to go about it:

Trivets

Trivets are an excellent way to avoid direct contact with your countertops with the toaster. Trivets are made from steel, ceramic, and even silicone.

The best and most affordable trivets you should go for are silicone trivets. They can tolerate the same high heat as the other trivets made from ceramics and cork.

At the same time, they stay cool, and you can leave your toaster on them for a long time without worrying that they will get too hot to the extent they damage your countertops.

When buying the trivets, ensure that you buy them from a reputable store. This way, you have peace of mind that they are high quality and will give you a long service.

Ceramic tile

Ceramic tiles come with an in-built protective coating that enables the tiles to withstand daily use without showing signs of damage.

The beauty of the tiles is you don’t need any special tools to install them, which makes them an excellent and cost-effective solution to the hot toaster. All you need to do is to align the tile around your appliance, and once you complete the four sides, you are good to go.

Cardboard or wood

You can always use cardboard if you don’t want to invest in a trivet or ceramic tile. Be cautious of your safety when using a board, as the plastic board can melt fast.

As much as a wooden board won’t melt, it is risky to staining, especially when exposed to high temperatures.

Steel baking sheet

Steel baking sheets don’t scratch or damage the surfaces and, at the same time, remain durable enough to withstand heat from different appliances, including toasters.

When buying the sheets for your quartz kitchen countertops Durham, pay close attention to how wide and deep the coaster is. As a rule, ensure that the sheets perfectly fit your appliance.

Can You Chop On Quartz?

Due to their tough nature, it’s tempting to want to cut directly on your quartz countertops.

Can you chop on quartz? Yes, you can do it, but you don’t have to. As much as you will find quartz in most commercial kitchens, chefs don’t cut directly on it. In fact, they make it clear that every staff using the kitchen should use a cutting board, even if quartz is known to be highly resistant to scratching.

Even if quartz is tough and scratch-resistant and you won’t immediately notice the scratches when you cut directly on it, when you repeatedly cut on the surfaces, you wear out the seal that quartz surfaces are fabricated with, which means that the food substances start going past the surface and into the core, damaging your precious countertops.

Due to the drawbacks of chopping directly on quartz, you should avoid doing it, at all times.

Other things you shouldn’t do on your quartz countertops

Besides not chopping on quartz, there are plenty of other things you shouldn’t do to keep your surfaces in top shape. These things include:

Don’t chip the corners

While quartz surfaces are highly chip-resistant, they aren’t chip-proof. This means that when you exert enough pressure on them, they are bound to chip away, and you are left with worn-out, ugly countertop surfaces.

To avoid this, take extra caution, especially around the corners, sinks, and dishwashers.

If your kitchen is too busy and you suspect there will be unavoidable chips, install multi-colored surfaces that hide chips more than monotone designs.

Avoid concentrated bleach and cleaners.

Cleaning is one of the excellent ways to keep your countertops in top shape, but you should be cautious of the bleach and cleaner you use as some cleaners contain bleach and other harmful products that can damage your countertops.

In most cases, all you need is soap and water to keep your surfaces in top shape, but if you have to use cleaning products, pay close attention to the contents and ensure that it doesn’t contain any bleach.

You should avoid acidic cleaners the same way you should stay clear of high pH cleaners as they cause the same damage as acidic cleaners.

Avoid writing the countertops.

A clean and well-maintained quartz surface is inviting, and you might be tempted to write on it, but don’t, as writings on the countertops gives them a cheap look. The situation is even worse when you write using permanent markers that won’t come out.

In the event, the kids write or draw on the countertops, move with haste, remove the marks using a dry cloth, and rinse with warm water.

Avoid cooking grease

You will rarely have your quartz countertops in the kitchen, and they go for a long time without getting greased. When grease splashes on your countertops, don’t worry. Instead, simply clean it using soap and water. If this doesn’t remove the grease, use a degreasing product.

To avoid damage, ensure that the product doesn’t have bleach or any other lethal contents that can damage your quartz surfaces.

Don’t keep solvents and chemicals on the countertops

Keep the solvents and powerful chemicals away from your countertops. These include: paint removers, furniture strippers, nail polish remover, oil soaps, bluing, and any other product.

If you have to have these chemicals on the countertops, don’t place them directly there. Instead, have a solid container to hold the products you are sure won’t leak.

Don’t place hot items on the countertops.

Quartz countertops are heat resistant but not heatproof. This means that you might get away with placing hot items directly on the countertops, but when you repeatedly do it, it’s a matter of time before you cause extensive damage.

You shouldn’t place hot items directly on the countertops to avoid this. Instead, have hot mats and trivets in a place where you put the hot items after removing them from the oven. The hot things that shouldn’t come into contact with your quartz kitchen countertops NC are: frying pans, crock pots, griddles, roaster ovens, and heat lamps.