CanAmSteve

Great idea, but with a possible $2500 savings over ten years, still a hard sell when it will cost $3000. Especially when one considers those savings are always calculated on best-case scenarios. If you are frugal hot water users (single, travel a lot, etc.) your payback could be 25 years. What's the average time anyone owns a house now? Seven years or so?

What would be nice is to see this integrated into a whole-house heat pump system, rather than a separate unit with its inherent service issues. Just think, in the summer you'd heat you hot water with waste heat from cooling the house.

Do you think that payback calculation includes the cost of annual servicing?

This looks just like Wedi board - used in Europe for over a decade. Are we that far behind? www.wedi.co.uk

Well, I ma just a consumer, but I've done several kitchens using granite over the last 15 years, and they all still look as good as the day they were installed. I think it is important to choose appropriate colors and patterns, but I've never bothered to seal any of them and I'm a frequent red wine drinker.

And because granite is a natural product, it doesn't have that dated "man made" life-span. I'd say solid-surface has passed its prime, and concrete is but a flash in the pan. But granite will be appreciated for a long time.

Granite is still overpriced but in many markets (not the USA) its installed price has dropped by two-thirds over the last decade. In the US, it's still considered high-end and the price is kept artificially high - I expect that will soon change.

Let's face it - laminate does the job well at a good price/value ratio. It's simple enough to tear out and throw away should it become damaged - or even if you just tire of it. Granite is a commitment - but high maintenance? Compared to what?

The worst thing about granite is its unforgiving nature to your Pyrex and crockery. It won't hurt your granite to take hot casseroles straight from the oven, but don't set them down too hard!