Worktop replacement in Bulls Cross

Yes. Bulls Cross is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EN1, EN2. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Enfield. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

The rear extension is frequently original rather than added, which means it is solidly built and just as far out of square as the rest of the house. 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 under the old top is the real question. 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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.

A tiled hall floor takes a dropped corner badly, so boards go down over the tiles before anything comes through the door. 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. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. One flat out of use at a time. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Chosen against the doors that are staying.

A window at one end and a doorway at the other means one end of the run is lit from behind and the other is interrupted, so the two ends of the same length behave differently. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The new pieces are nested, not traced off the old ones. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The old cut-out was hiding the notch you now need. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units stay, so the flat is usable that evening.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. 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.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Wider halls make the carry noticeably easier, and that alone can remove a join that a narrower terrace would have forced into the run. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. Every internal doorway on the way through is another frame to clear, and internal doors come off their hinges rather than being propped open. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Whether the strip-out is a cut-up job is settled at template.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. What the old top has been hiding is usually a floor that settled towards the back and units that were never fixed back to the wall. Off in the morning, on by the afternoon.