Corian can be sanded. Dekton and quartz usually cannot.

Singapore kitchens mix Caesarstone and Silestone quartz, Dekton, Neolith and Laminam sintered stone, and Corian or Hi-Macs solid surface. Sintered slabs at 12 to 20mm chip at a 90-degree mitre and crack at a sharp hob corner. Solid surface can be sanded seamless. Quartz and sintered stone take a colour-matched resin fill at S$180 to S$380, or a wet diamond cut at S$250 to S$550. The wrong pad is how a chip becomes a crack.

Sintered stone, the Dekton, Neolith and Laminam family, is an ultra-compact slab, often 12mm, sometimes 20mm. It is hard and it is brittle at details. A 90-degree mitre at an undermount sink is a classic chip point because the arris is thin and the bowl hardware loads it. A hob cutout with a sharp internal corner concentrates heat and mechanical stress, and the crack starts at that corner. Quartz, Caesarstone and Silestone, is a resin-bound stone. It chips too, and it can scorch, and a dry cut throws respirable silica. Solid surface, Corian and Hi-Macs, is a different chemistry. A competent tech can sand and seam it so a burn or a chip disappears. You cannot sand a sintered chip back into the slab. You fill it or you replace the piece.

The fill for quartz and sintered stone is a colour-matched methacrylate or epoxy, UV-cured when the product requires it, levelled and polished to the sheen of that face. It is S$180 to S$380 for a chip that has not travelled. In raking light a fill can still be found. That is an honest repair, not a new slab. A crack that has crossed the cutout is not a fill. Enlarging a hob or a sink opening is a wet diamond cut with HEPA extraction, S$250 to S$550, and the new internal corners get a radius so the same crack is not designed back in. The hob guide covers the gas and the circuit. This page covers the stone. A stainless trim is the alternative when you are going smaller rather than larger.

Identify the slab before any pad touches it. Solid surface feels warmer and can be sanded to a fine powder that is not stone. Quartz shows a resin sparkle. Sintered stone looks more like a ceramic in the edge and will chip as a shard. A polish pad for marble will glaze quartz badly and do nothing useful to sintered stone. Homey Furnishing names the material in the photos before the price is fixed. If the slab is cracked through, we say replacement. We do not inject a structural crack and call it a chip.

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, carries the permit-exempt portion of this work. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), listed on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, carries any scope that needs an HDB renovation permit. Those two invoices are not interchangeable. Quartz cutting dust is a silica control. Wet cutting and HEPA are the method. A new kitchen layout is an HDB permit via V On Construction. A fill in the existing top is not.

Spend ten minutes with a torch, your phone camera, and a tape before you buy a product or book a hack. Write down what you see. The safe checks below do not ask you to open a live wire, cut a pressurised pipe, or lean out of a window. Photograph the chip with a ruler, the hob cutout corners, and the edge thickness. 12mm and 20mm behave differently. Note the brand if it is still on the paperwork.

Stop at the red-flag column. Stop if the slab has cracked through, if the only tool is a dry grinder, or if the material has not been named. The reason DIY fails is almost never a lack of effort. It is that the tool or chemical makes the next professional repair harder, or it hides a leak, a live conductor, or a deposit line until the damage is larger than S$180 to S$380 for a resin fill. S$250 to S$550 for a wet cutout enlargement..

This is the sequence a careful technician uses so you can tell a shortcut from a finished job. Tools stay in the van. Readings and photos go on the same worksheet as the price. Colour-matched UV-cured resin, a polish sequence for that mineral, wet diamond with HEPA if the cutout changes, and a radius on every new internal corner. No dry disc. No marble pad on quartz.

1. Step 1. Make the area safe and confirm the symptom still matches the photos. For Corian can be sanded. Dekton and quartz usually cannot., that means Stop if the slab has cracked through, if the only tool is a dry grinder, or if the material has not been named.
2. Step 2. Measure before touching the finished surface. Photograph the chip with a ruler, the hob cutout corners, and the edge thickness. 12mm and 20mm behave differently. Note the brand if it is still on the paperwork.
3. Step 3. Set protection and lay out the tools that belong to this material. Colour-matched UV-cured resin, a polish sequence for that mineral, wet diamond with HEPA if the cutout changes, and a radius on every new internal corner. No dry disc. No marble pad on quartz.
4. Step 4. Carry out the repair in the order the material allows. a sharp corner is cut again, quartz is dry-cut, or a sintered chip is sanded as if it were Corian is the failure this order is written to avoid.
5. Step 5. Test in place. The fill is cured and level, or the cutout is clean, dry and radiused. You are told whether the repair will telegraph in raking light. A through-crack is reported as replacement, not polished over.
6. Step 6. Clean, label the photographs against the invoice lines, and leave the statutory openings, weep holes, access panels and labels visible.

The order matters because a sharp corner is cut again, quartz is dry-cut, or a sintered chip is sanded as if it were Corian is what happens when a step is rushed. Handover is a measurement, not a handshake. The fill is cured and level, or the cutout is clean, dry and radiused. You are told whether the repair will telegraph in raking light. A through-crack is reported as replacement, not polished over. If the reading or the water test fails, the visit is not closed and a second line is priced before anyone leaves. Permit work, if the diagnosis has moved into hacking, waterproofing, or a new layout, stops here and is repriced through V On Construction Pte. Ltd. UEN 201611708H.

A fill is not a cut, and a cut is not a new top. Price the one the crack actually is. Prices below are 2026 Singapore bands for the described scope. They are not a coupon and they are not a guess after an unopened door. A second trade, such as a PUB licensed plumber or an EMA licensed electrician, is named when the law requires it rather than buried inside the labour line. Compare rows by what they include. The planning-life column belongs to that row only.

2026 SGD scope bands

Brand, material and lifespan

If the hob is also changing, use the cutout checker. If the sink has dropped, use the undermount guide before you load the mitre again.

Three worked jobs show how the same symptom is priced differently in a new BTO, an older resale flat, and a private condo or landed house. The totals are the lines a household actually paid, not a national average. Permit-exempt invoices are issued by Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. UEN 202018148K.

Case 1: 4-room BTO in Punggol

A 12mm sintered mitre chipped at the sink. The bowl was still supported. Colour-matched UV resin, S$260. The chip was visible only in raking light, which was said beforehand. No dry grinding.

Case 2: resale kitchen in Tampines

Caesarstone, sharp hob corners, a crack starting. The cutout was enlarged wet with radiused corners, S$480, as part of an induction swap. The crack had not crossed the slab, so the top stayed. HEPA ran the whole cut.

Case 3: condo in Holland Village

A Hi-Macs burn beside the kettle. Sanded and polished seamless, S$240. The same burn on the Dekton island in that kitchen was a fill, not a sanding, and was quoted separately at S$220. Two materials, two methods.

Photograph the edge and the corner. Name the brand if you know it, and do not dry-grind while you wait. Send the photos and the measurements from the ten-minute check. The reply prices the band on this page against what the photos actually show.

• When the cutout is for a new hob
• If the mitre is loaded by a loose bowl
• Countertop repairs