What Makes Stone Panels a Preferable Alternate to Dimensional Stone

When your product is an alternative to another product that has been around since the beginning of time, it can be a little bit of an uphill battle to prove that yours is the preferable alternate – even if you have the testing to prove it. Such is our situation at Stone Panels, Inc. Even though we can prove our thin stone veneer can dismiss problems inherent with traditional stone cladding systems, dimensional stone has been used for thousands of years – pretty much ever since man invented the wheel to move it.

Our reinforced honeycomb backing turns stone into a decorative veneer. So the strengths of the aluminum honeycomb material compensates for all of the weaknesses that come with traditional stone cladding.

  • StoneLite® overcomes finite element analysis problems inherent to dimensional stone.
  • StoneLite® doesn’t share the same reliance on a system of traditional anchors that are subject to atmospheric elements.
  • StoneLite® does not suffer from similar installation hurdles, such as field adjustments and tolerances.
  • Flexural Analogy, Moisture Ingress, Seismic Incompatibility and Impact Resistance issues? StoneLite® alleviates all of these concerns.
  • StoneLite® makes installation less weather dependent and requires less skill and equipment from installers.

Comparing Stone Panels to Dimensional Stone
Whether you go with StoneLite® or solid stone, you can have the same stone and the same finish. We get our stone from quarries just like you would obtain dimensional stone. The difference is in what we do with that same slab of stone. When we cut down the stone to size we’ve already improved our thin stone veneer to the point of being preferable to dimensional stone. This is because we’ve cut the weight by about 80 percent and made our product immensely lighter and easier to install.

Also, thanks to our fiber-reinforced epoxy skin, our thin stone veneer puts solid stone’s performance after installation to shame. StoneLite® is impervious to water penetration because the epoxy works as a waterproof barrier. In addition, our stone panels’ high impact and flexural strength allow it to resist up to 60 times more impact than solid 3 centimeter granite!

When your product is the alternative to a product that is associated with a phrase like, “solid as a rock,” well it can be tough to dig up a misconception that is so embedded. But at Stone Panels, Inc. that’s just what we’ve been doing for more than forty years, as our thin stone veneer proves time and time again that it can go toe to toe with dimensional stone and come out the better product every single time.