Worktop replacement in Bunhill

Yes. Bunhill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC1Y, EC2A. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Islington. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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 van has to stand through both halves of the day. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The goods lift is generous and the flat entrance often is not, so the tightest point on the route is inside the flat rather than in the building. Converted warehouses put the kitchen against original brick or blockwork that has never been made flat, so scribes of 15 to 20mm along a run are normal and every piece is templated to the wall exactly as it is rather than to a drawing. Old tops were scribed to a wall that has moved since. Where the structure cannot be cut into, the stone is relieved instead, and a relief that deep changes both the yield off the slab and how the piece is handled. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one.

Goods lifts and passenger lifts fail differently: one has a rated load that matters, the other has a door aperture that matters more. 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. Out and in happen along the same protected route. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. 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 one-hour window will not hold a two-way job.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. 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 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Where the seam went before is not where it goes now. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

An intruding steel column, a brick pier or a downstand breaks a run that would otherwise have been one clean piece. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It was there long before we were. Book the goods lift and loading bay for the day, clear a straight route through the open plan, and have a plumber on hand for the island services coming up through the floor. A landlord with several similar flats usually wants one specification repeated, so the material, the edge detail and the upstand height are recorded and reused rather than rechosen each time. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. One day out of use, agreed in advance.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. 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. Services coming up through a floor slab mean the island cannot move to suit the stone, so the stone is cut to suit the island. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Stone is far heavier than what is coming off.

Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The old top hid it. The drawing will not.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The strip-out waits until the new stone has somewhere to stand.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. It usually explains the odd filler piece or strip of beading in the existing run that nobody could account for. Nothing about it is a discovery on fitting day.