Worktop replacement in Bethnal Green

Yes. Bethnal Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E2. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where a loading concession applies at all, it holds only while something is being carried, which makes it a way to unload rather than a way to park. 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. Where the van must move, the waste goes on first. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The original range recess often survives as a shallow alcove with an iron lintel over it, a hundred millimetres deeper than the wall either side of it. 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. What is behind the old splashback decides the new one. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. A filler strip is evidence, not decoration.

A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. 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 material is stacked outside rather than left along the route. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. 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. A skip on the frontage takes the space the van needed.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. 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 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. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. The fastest upgrade a sound kitchen has.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Breakfast bars get the steel they never had. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The stack was boxed in after the kitchen went in. 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. Method statements, insurance certificates and named operatives are wanted before a crew is cleared to attend, all of which is routine when it is asked for a week out. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Disposal is named, not assumed.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The original front door is narrow and the hall is often the only way in, which puts a ceiling on the longest single piece. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. A twenty-year-old run is replaced to its own shape.

Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. 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. A postformed top swallowed the fall. This will not.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The waste leaves with us, so the van has to still be there.

What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. It usually explains the odd filler piece or strip of beading in the existing run that nobody could account for. The alcove was never square and it still is not.