Worktop replacement in Camberwell

Yes. Camberwell is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE5. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

There is a solid base under the old scullery end and suspended timber where the addition meets the house, and the two part company along that joint. 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. The fabric gets checked while it is open. 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. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.

Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. 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. Two carries in one day needs the route free for both. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. 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.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Chosen against the doors that are staying. 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 carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Old top out Tuesday, tenant in on Friday.

Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. 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 sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. 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. A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Expected downtime beats discovered downtime.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. A short run of external steps before the communal door means a piece is lifted twice before the staircase proper has even started. 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. Waste goes out the way the stone came in, so the route stays clear.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. 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.

A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A corbel on show under an overhang is a decision about how the piece looks from a stool, so it gets settled alongside the edge profile rather than left to whoever fits it. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Stone wants gables where laminate needed none.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. 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. 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. Old fixings come out of soft brick and better ones go in.