Well not to put too fine a point on it I've fitted quite a few wooden tops and there are some definite "avoid like the plague" ones. Don't ever fit oak or walnut. People invariably leave wet steel cutlery, Brillo pads, cast iron pans, etc on them and that is the killer - you get 'orrible black marks which are the devil's own to get rid of. Do put a breadboard end on the runs if they are near to an Aga. Do supply the cook with a beech or sycamore chopping board and tell them why they should use it, and of the need to wipe all spills immediately, not in 4 hours time after the dinner party is over. If the kitchen doesn't have a dishwasher, then try to avoid fitting a wooden top full stop. Always put in drip grooves around the Belfast on the underside of the top and try to avoid those stupid high "school chemistry lab" taps which always splash water onto the tops. Rout-out a falling drainer that actually gets rid of the water - I cut my own tapered jigs to do this. And always seal the timber with something (I use a PU sealant) before oiling thoroughly (although teak and iroko don't the sealant, just the oiling). Then providing the customer understands that the darned thing needs regular oiling, or that they have to pay you to come back every 4 to 6 months to do it for them, that top should last for years....... Problem is that most people are either lazy or ignorant of the maintainance issues and thus treat solid wood worktops like laminate with subsequent disillusionment (they do the same with solid surface tops like Corian, with a similar outcome). When I was a kid we lived in a house with a pair sycamore drainers and a big double Belfast in the middle. Those tops were never oiled, just scrubbed and dried and they just lasted and lasted. But no-one could ever say they looked good.
McLuma, I just think that wood tops in a florists are asking for trouble because of the constant wet and the beg steel containers being c=draffed over them. My recollection is that florists' traditionally had either stone tops (I recall granite from my childhood) and/or zinc sheet. I'd guess that was for practical reasons rather than aesthetics.
And just for good measure, my favourite timbers for worktops are iroko and teak - they withstand abuse so much better - but I'd still run a mile if asked to put one of them into a commercial environment where laminate and solid surface are just so much better suited that either solid wood or granite.
Scrit
