Worktop replacement in Camden Town

Yes. Camden Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW1. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. 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. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Electrics went in at conversion, some in surface trunking and some chased into lath and plaster, so no cable route in these rooms is safe to assume. 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 building has kept moving; the new template catches up. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Nothing about it is a discovery on fitting day.

Pendant fittings over the stairwell and anything hung on the half-landing come down first, because a piece on edge sweeps a wider arc than the people carrying it. 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. 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. 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. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Housings set out for laminate are checked first. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. 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. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate was scribed thin. Stone cannot be. 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 street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Units stay, so the flat is usable that evening.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. What is behind the old top decides the day.

Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. A communal flight is out of use while a piece is on it, so the carry is timed so nobody is trying to pass on a half-landing. 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.

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 sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The sink is chosen before the cut list is set.

Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Disconnection happens before the old top is lifted, not during.