Terrazzo or granite?
The figures, and where each one comes from
| Terrazzo | Granite | |
|---|---|---|
| Seams | none in a poured floor, or narrow tile joints | joints every slab width |
| Colour | specified, repeatable | whatever the quarry produces |
| Hardness | engineered, aggregate dependent | harder, and it varies by stone |
| Heat | use a board or a trivet | takes heat directly |
| Repair | re-ground in place | a slab is matched, replaced or resupplied |
Why the processes are not interchangeable
The honest comparison is close, and pretending otherwise would cost a sale. Granite is harder and it is the better stone for a worktop next to a hot pan. What terrazzo has that granite cannot deliver is a specification rather than a selection: on a granite job the client chooses from what exists, and on a terrazzo job the client chooses the colour and the aggregate and both are then made to that choice. That difference matters in a hotel lobby and does not matter at all in a domestic kitchen, which is why the answer to this question is about floor area rather than about material.
What these figures are, and what they are not
⛔ No hardness figure appears on this page, and no Mohs value for either material is given: the values in circulation come from vendor pages rather than from a standard, and the aggregate in terrazzo makes a single number meaningless anyway. ⛔ We have not tested either material. The heat behaviour of granite is a property of the stone; the table states relationships, not measurements.
If you are specifying this
These are the forms we actually supply for this question, with production photographs where we have them: