Corian has been sold in the UK for more than 30 years but stone companies have looked on it as a competitor rather than a complement to their products. That is starting to change.

Corian is the original solid surface. It has been sold in the UK for 34 years and for most of that time granite was not considered to be part of the same market. Granite and Corian occupied their own niches. More recently those boundaries have become blurred with the two product categories more often going head to head for the same customers. The shrinking economy has only heightened that competition.

But whereas the granite worktop sector has previously considered Corian a competitor whenever it has come up against it, now some fabricators see the material as an opportunity.

Most fabricators in the granite sector have already made the psychological leap from exclusively dealing in natural products by encompassing man-made quartz products, which were also first seen as a threat by many granite companies before realising they represented an opportunity that is generally considered to have doubled the size of the market for granite fabricators.

Now granite companies are starting to think: If quartz, why not solid surfaces? And CDUK, the company that introduced Corian to the UK in 1979 and still supplies it, is as happy to sell it to the granite worktop sector as to any other – something they are keen to emphasise as some of their competitors have suggested otherwise.

That is not to say they will sell Corian to anyone. They do always make sure fabricators have been instructed in how to use it and have the right equipment to process it because the reputation of the brand is at stake – and they have opened a modern training facility at their new premises in Leeds to provide the training. But they point out that refusing to supply certain sectors or some companies in a given geographical area would be an illegally restrictive practice. In any case, they don’t want to lose sales.

CDUK was established by Geoff Baker, today the Chairman, and Mrs Toni Hibbert, Director. Geoff’s son, Gary, is now Managing Director. He told NSS that the company has grown every year of its existence, even the past three, and one of the reasons for that is that CDUK are always exploring new markets.

Corian came to the UK when Geoff was running the plumbers merchants he had set up and was looking for a material from which to make integrated vanity units for hotels. He felt the engineered marble available at that time was not the ideal solution for his needs and was seeking an alternative. He came across Corian on his travels and spent the next year trying to persuade DuPont to let him distribute it in Britain. Eventually he did persuade them and began to establish a network of fabricators.

So began the solid surfaces industry in the UK and the establishment of Corian, which, in spite of being a registered trade mark owned by DuPont, is often misused as a generic term for solid surfaces – like Hoover for vacuum cleaners – which Gary Baker says is a double edged sword. “It means Corian is synonymous with solid surfaces but it also means people use the name to sell lesser products.”

Corian (and other solid surfaces) is not the same as engineered quartz. Quartz needs the same skills and diamond tooling to work as granite does. Solid surfaces don’t.

Solid surfaces are sometimes described as ‘acrylic stone’, or, as CDUK say of Corian: “…the durability and rugged characteristics of stone combined with the workability of hardwood”. Corian even burns like wood, with non-toxic fumes, so waste is easily disposed of, yet is resilient enough to have hot pans put on it (contrary to the urban myth that says it will melt).

Technically, Corian is densely mineral-filled methylmethacrylate. The mineral filling is aluminium trihydrate (bauxite ore), which accounts for about two-thirds of the product, while the methylmethacrylate is the acrylic. The result is a product typically 25% less dense than granite (ie it is lighter).

Although it is like wood in some ways it does not compress like wood if hit with a hammer but shatters like granite. It is non-porous, so does not stain, and can be cleaned with normal household cleaners.

Corian is supplied with a honed rather than highly polished finish because it is not as hard as granite or quartz, but if it does get scratched, the surface is as easily sanded back as if it were wood.

In fact, solid surfaces are worked with the same tooling that is used for wood and wood-based products, which is why Corian has traditionally been processed by the joinery sector. But the same CNC workcentres used for granite and quartz can be used for Corian as long as woodworking tooling is used.

Corian is usually supplied in sheets 3658mm x 760mm, 12mm thick, so a standard worktop can be produced from the sheet, although it is also available 1300mm wide for island units as well as 4mm and 6mm thick for cladding and 19mm thick for doors and furniture. Part sheets are offered as standard and customised sizes can be supplied if your order is large enough.

Drop edges are easily created simply by gluing them on. Sheets of the material are joined together in the same way. The joints are practically invisible because the glue is effectively liquid Corian, although it is important the gluing takes place in a

dust-free environment.

Corian is also easily bent by heating it. CDUK sell an Elkom machine that heats the sheets and shapes them with a vacuum former over moulds – just one of a full range of machines, tools and accessories needed to process and install Corian sold by CDUK – although if there is a one-off need to bend the material, CDUK will do it for their customers as part of the service.

The versatility of Corian helps explain its continued growth, as new uses are being found for it all the time. One of the latest has been to fit out the kitchen areas of up-market horse boxes.

It is also increasingly being used as exterior cladding – thanks to CDUK, because it was Geoff and Toni who were responsible for its worldwide inauguration as cladding in 1987 when they sold it for a building in Exeter. The building and its cladding are still there and Corian is now specifically marketed and increasingly used as a material for rainscreen cladding. One of the latest uses as cladding was on the columns at the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent.

But a major use remains work surfaces and it fits in nicely with granite and quartz because at around £300 per linear metre for standard size slabs it is a product at the discerning end of the market.

Gary Baker says: “People upgrade to granite or solid surfaces. Both are high end products but they are eating into the laminate market because when people replace their kitchens they want something better.”

Some of that growth is coming from the commercial sector, where leisure centres, shops, hotels and offices particularly like the ease with which Corian can be cleaned, even when graffiti has been daubed on it, and the fact that it can be easily and invisibly repaired rather than having to be replaced when it is damaged.

These growth areas for CDUK are part of the traditional province of many masonry companies and Gary Baker says: “Stonemasons are a very important part of our business. We are looking to develop better links with this element of the industry going forward.

“We all work in the same space and we hope Corian is a material they would look at in the future in addition to their existing ranges to offer a wider choice of products to their customers. It’s not for everyone and it does require separate skills and investment, but it’s a wonderful opportunity for those who have the will to do it.”