Worktop replacement in Blackfriars

Yes. Blackfriars is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC4V, EC4Y. It is worked on our City of London run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. 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. A timed bay does not cover a strip-out and a fit. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

These flats are built with a floating floor over a concrete slab for acoustic reasons, and it deflects slightly under the weight of a stone island. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. Same units, straighter line, better surface. An unsupported overhang off a stud wall wants noggins fixed between the studs before the boarding goes on, and once it is boarded and skimmed that option has gone. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. What is behind the old top decides the day.

The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. 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. Where it will not come out whole it comes out in sections. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. 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. Old stone is heavier going out than it looked coming in.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The fastest upgrade a sound kitchen has. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. One flat out of use at a time.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. 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. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Stud centres are almost never where the brackets would like to be, so fixing positions get set from the framing and the stone is designed to suit. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The beading was covering a bowed wall. Book the service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. 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.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. The new pieces are nested, not traced off the old ones.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. 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. Cutting a top down indoors means emptying the room first.

Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. A partition that gives when you lean on it will give under someone sitting at an overhang, and a bonded mitre nearby is where that movement shows first. 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.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Out and in happen along the same protected route.