Worktop replacement in Aldersbrook

Yes. Aldersbrook is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E12. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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.

The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. Nothing goes back on carcasses the building has pulled out of square. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The beading was covering a bowed wall.

Every internal doorway on the way through is another frame to clear, and internal doors come off their hinges rather than being propped open. 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. A stone top coming out whole needs the same crew as one going in. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. 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. 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 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A day, not a project.

Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The strip-out is the part worth planning. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Strip out first, then measure what is actually there. Have a plumber booked to disconnect the sink, tap and waste first thing and reconnect after we have gone, and clear the hallway and stairs completely so we can carry slabs through the house. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Whoever owns the carcasses owns that call.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. A picture rail, a deep skirting and a moulded architrave all sit in the way of anything that assumes flat wall from floor to ceiling. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Nothing new goes down until the run reads level end to end.

How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. A surface swap is the fastest upgrade available on a kitchen that is otherwise sound. A void week is the entire schedule.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. A pendant light hanging in the middle of a hall ceiling sets the angle a piece can be tilted to, and it is the measurement nobody thinks to take. 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. Timing the two carries is most of the planning.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Deep original skirting is often left in behind the units, standing them off the wall, so the back edge of the stone is plotted where the carcasses actually sit. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Units kept, surface changed, one day.