Worktop replacement in Castle Green

Yes. Castle Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM9, IG11. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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. Both loads want the same few metres of kerb. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The back door frequently opens straight into the kitchen, which is the best carry route in the house and the one people forget to mention. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. A replacement is measured against the walls as they are now. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. 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.

A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. 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. A stone top coming out whole needs the same crew as one going in. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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. Half a day of parking buys half a job.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop installation first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. 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. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. The flat earns nothing while it sits empty.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The sink is chosen before the cut list is set. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

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. The old cut-out was hiding the notch you now need. Unlock the side gate and clear the alley of bins, bikes and pots, and arrange a plumber for the sink and an electrician if the hob is hard-wired. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Whoever owns the carcasses owns that call.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Joins move onto the gables this time round.

A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. The shape is already there to be measured, which makes the template straightforward and leaves the strip-out as the part that actually needs planning. The return is remeasured even where it looks unchanged.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. 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. Timing the two carries is most of the planning.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. 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. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured.