Worktop replacement in Berrylands

Yes. Berrylands is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT5. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. 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 leaves with us, so the van has to still be there. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Cottage estate houses were built to a small number of standard plans, so the kitchen is compact, roughly square and predictable in the good sense. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. A replacement is measured against the walls as they are now. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It was there long before we were.

A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. 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. Nothing new comes down a hall still full of old top. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. 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. Both loads want the same few metres of kerb.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop installation comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A plumber either side of us. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. The fastest upgrade a sound kitchen has.

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. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A run that flexed under laminate gets support now. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The old top hid it. The drawing will not. Unlock the side gate and clear the alley of bins, bikes and pots, and arrange a plumber for the sink and an electrician if the hob is hard-wired. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sequenced around access rather than around the workshop.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. The scullery and the kitchen were knocked into one at some point, and the stub of the old dividing wall is still there under the plaster. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The old top comes off in pieces, not whole.

Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. The kitchen sits at the rear with a back door beside it, so the carry is short and comes in from the garden rather than through the house. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. Chipboard that has taken water will not take stone.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. A gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre in. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Half a day of parking buys half a job.

Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. 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. 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. The route is protected once and then used four times.