Worktop replacement in Belvedere

Yes. Belvedere is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA17. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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 waste leaves with us, so the van has to still be there. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The floor is a concrete slab screeded before the units existed, so it falls slightly and consistently towards the back door. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. Chipboard that has taken water will not take stone. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The old top hid it. The drawing will not.

A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. 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. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Both loads want the same few metres of kerb.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The annexe top goes in on the same day. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Booked at short notice, because the notice is short.

The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A thinner top drops the run against the tiles. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Nothing about it is a discovery on fitting day. Sort a parking bay or permit near the entrance, confirm the lift is in service and get us the door codes, and tell us about any asbestos survey on the flat before we start stripping out. Residents are given written notice before anyone attends, and that notice period rather than the workshop is what governs the earliest sensible start. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Disposal is named, not assumed.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. Where the kitchen has been opened into the living room the opening was trimmed with a steel, and a stub of the old wall was left standing at one end. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. The old cut-outs rarely match where the new appliances go.

Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. Half a day of parking buys half a job.

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. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. The way out is measured with the way in.