Granite Facade Cladding Price per Square Meter: You Measure the Face, You Pay for the Cut
For example, an 800×600 module cut from 1800×600 stock uses 1600 mm and leaves a 200 mm strip — about 89% utilisation, or some 112 m² of slab per 100 m² of wall. Those figures hold for this module and this stock only: at 900×600 you buy 100 m². A granite facade cladding price is quoted on the visible face, and what you pay for is the cut area. Add grooving, anchors and stand-up packing and the figure takes shape.
What does granite facade cladding cost per square meter, and why is this square not the paving square?
What granite facade cladding costs per square meter begins with two squares: the price is quoted on the visible face of the elevation, and what you pay for is the area cut from the slab. On one wall the drawing gives one figure and the workshop requisition gives another, and the difference is the layout. A paving slab lies flat, and an offcut can still go into a corner. A cladding panel stands upright, carries a panel number and a position, and one wrong cut scraps the piece, so layout loss gets no second life. In a cladding price the stone is only one part; what separates suppliers is layout loss, machining time per panel and packing method. Whether the panel is 25 or 30 mm is settled by the designer from wind load and the fixing system, and is not argued here.
How do you calculate layout loss, and how much extra area does one wall need?
Take an example. A module of 800×600 mm cut from 1800×600 mm stock yields two panels (1600 mm). Utilisation is 1600÷1800≈89%, so 100 m² of visible face needs about 112 m² of slab. The 200 mm strip is scrap unless the job needs reveal strips of that width; the 89% assumes scrap — the conservative case. Set the module at 900×600 mm and 1800 divides cleanly, leaving only the saw kerf. Same wall, different module, roughly a tenth difference in stone bought. The module is therefore not a drawing detail; it decides how many square meters of slab you order. Send the module drawing to the works and ask for a layout sheet showing where the strip falls and how wide it is. These figures are an example only: run the numbers on your own drawing and against the slab sizes actually on hand.
What does each panel go through, and how are grooving and undercut anchors counted?
The unit of the machining charge matters more than its rate. A 900×600 mm panel carries (0.9+0.6)×2 = 3.0 m of groove around four edges, plus four anchor holes; at 1.85 panels to the square meter that is roughly 5.6 m of groove and 7.4 holes. Charged per piece, a square meter needs 1.85 panels at 900×600; at 600×300 it needs 5.56 panels, the charge per panel unchanged, so three times the pieces and no saving. Charged per metre, the smaller the module the more groove per square meter (10 m at 600×300), so it climbs too. Both units punish small modules, each in its own way — which is why a per-piece quote and a per-metre quote have to be converted to square meters before they are compared. Chamfering and edge polishing usually sit outside the square-meter figure, so raise them in the same breath.
Sealing, packing and freight: which of them are inside the square-meter price?
The square-meter figure usually carries sealing and packing only; brackets, framing and ocean freight sit outside it, and freight is spread per container, not per square meter. Sealing and packing are the two lines most often waved through in a single word. Sealing is counted by face: back, four edges and visible face are separate items, and back-only is not the same job as six faces. Packing is peculiar to cladding: finished panels stand upright in A-frames or upright crates, separated by soft spacers, never stacked flat. Stacked flat, the load lands in the middle of the panel and even 30 mm will break; standing, the load runs through the edge. The cost is space. 346 m² per 20ft container is the ceiling for 30 mm slabs stacked flat, and upright finished panels will not reach it, so the same freight is spread over fewer square meters. On a pale stone such as Wave White G418, one face left unsealed shows first as a colour shift once moisture sits behind it.
Why do openings and corners always come back as an extra charge?
Because at an opening the visible face and the cut area part company. A window or door opening is deducted from the visible area, but the reveal still has to be returned: the narrow strips on the side walls are cut and polished on their own, and what remains of the slab rarely finds another use. Reveal widths come off your drawing, whatever it says; the 100–200 mm band is experience, not a rule. External corners behave the same way, either lapped or mitred at 45 degrees, with both panel edges machined and the joint still expected to read as one straight line. Few pieces, many operations, none of it spreadable across a square-meter rate, so it is charged per piece or per metre. Silence in the quotation more often than not turns into an addition on site. Ask how returns are priced before work starts, not halfway up the wall.
Which questions get you quotes that can actually be compared?
Start with one rule: ask for a price against your module drawing, not against what the supplier calls standard practice. Then four questions. Is the area the visible face or the cut area? Is grooving and anchoring charged per metre or per piece? How many faces are sealed? With panels standing upright, how many square meters go into one container? Answer those four and both quotes sit on the same sheet. Our works run 30 mm slab, a 100 m² minimum, five working days for standard panels, stone and machining under one roof, and a module drawing can be laid out the same day.
| What to ask | What it shifts | What it costs if you don't |
|---|---|---|
| Visible face or cut area? | Who carries the layout loss | A dozen extra square meters at settlement, with no clear owner |
| Has this module been laid out? | 800 or 900 changes utilisation | Scrap strips priced into your stone |
| Grooving per metre or per piece? | The unit of the machining charge | Small panels priced per metre, groove length doubled |
| How many faces sealed? | Back, edges and face counted apart | One face only, and the wall whitens first |
| Square meters per upright container? | How freight spreads | Back-calculated from 346, freight understated |