What in the hay is going on here..

[Mikey P]

10 year old install.

She cooks a lot as you can see by the butter absorption in the grout near the range. It's the veining/ stretchmarks like lines that have her and I mystified. She claims they started showing up just recently..

For the most part the lines/swirls only show where some heat form cooking or coffee is happening.

Its a very delicate ceramic, lots of chipping going on.

 

[Charlie Lyman]

Maybe heat from the oven?
Are you going to color seal that?

 

[Mikey P]

Could be heat but on another counter it's happening as well with no nearby heat source.

Im going to try and color seal. Dont have high hopes of it sticking.

 

[Charlie Lyman]

I just got my first color seal job on a counter top. I'm pretty excited to do it.

 

[Mikey P]

sanded and well recessed grout I hope for your sake.

 

[Cameron DeMille]

Looks like the glaze is getting hairline cracks or something. I've seen this several times before but never really knew what it was.

 

[Mikey P]

pretty strange how it continues to the next tile.

 

[Foothills Phil]

Something was dropped on those two tiles and they are fractured.

 

[Mikey P]

the same weird line pattern is in three separate areas, all inter-tile involved.

 

[alazo1]

Maybe it's cheap tile with a very thin glaze.

 

[clean image]

cracks in the bisque, glazing remains uncracked, moisture, even atmoshperic, will travel up cracks and transluce thru glazing as a shadow, with the glazing magnifiing the situation

If you feel with your nail, you prob can not feel cracks. Sometime they will open and close with heat.

Why they cracked like that is intesting. Base material is stronger than the tiles.

Definate color stain to minimize migation into cracks, cause they can bloom even bigger

 

[FredC]

I was thinking along the same lines...but assumed a tile vs glaze mismatch

 

[jmo]

She probably set hot pans directly on the counter from the cooking top.