Worktop replacement in Catford

Yes. Catford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE6. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. 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. Units kept, surface changed, one day. Flats over the shops around the Broadway almost always mean a stair carry and a jointed run, price that in rather than discovering it on the day.

A one-way system and two stations funnel traffic tightly through the centre with loading restrictions on the main roads; the residential streets are permit-parked and narrow. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop templating and worktop installation. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A plumber either side of us. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sound carcasses are the condition.