Worktop replacement in Barkingside

Yes. Barkingside is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls look modern and are not: block or breeze with a skim that has been patched over decades, so dry-laying and scribing still apply. 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. Sound carcasses are the one condition. Plenty of replacement-only work here, so the critical measurement is the existing carcass depth, older units are often 570mm rather than 600mm and the overhang has to be set accordingly.

Easy suburban access on the residential roads with driveways and dropped kerbs; harder on the High Street itself and the flats above the parade, where there is no parking and stairs to the first floor. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. 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. 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.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Height change is checked before we cut. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The laminate has been covering it up. 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 householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed.