Worktop replacement in Aldborough Hatch

Yes. Aldborough Hatch is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG2. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Nothing goes out until the route back to the van is clear. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A boiler in a cupboard on the kitchen wall is normal in this stock, and its position is fixed by its flue. Post-war terraces have small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run, so runs are short and joins are rare, but there are usually two corners and a window cill to work around in a couple of metres. Chipboard that has taken water will not take stone. A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one.

The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. The old tops leave in one movement rather than piece by piece.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop installation first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Nothing else in the room has to change. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

The short run at the head of a U usually sits under a window, so that piece is scribed on three sides at once and has nowhere left to be pushed back to. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Joins move onto the gables this time round. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. It was there long before we were. Empty the base units completely and have a plumber disconnect the sink, tap and any washing machine plumbed in under the worktop before we arrive. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. The surface changes and the kitchen stays the one they know.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. Half a day can go on the strip-out where the way in is tight.

Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Ceiling heights dropped after the war, so there is less wall between the worktop and the wall units than in anything older. The units are often 1970s or 80s and only around 500mm deep, so a standard 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors and drawer fronts need checking against it. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. A U puts the sink in one leg, the hob in another and any drainer grooves in whatever is left, which spreads the cut-outs about but does not reduce the machining time. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The return is remeasured even where it looks unchanged.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. The two corners and the cill in a couple of metres are all re-measured once the old top is off. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now.