Worktop replacement in Cheam

Yes. Cheam is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM2, SM3. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The external wall on the passage side has never been rendered, so it is cold, solid and honest to fix into. 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 old top hid it; the new one will not. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The alcove was never square and it still is not.

Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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. Timing the two carries is most of the planning. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning. Two households cooking in one kitchen means two of most things, and the run has to carry a second sink or a second oven without losing its working length. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them.

Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Stone wants gables where laminate needed none. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone. 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 quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Whoever owns the carcasses owns that call.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. 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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The strip-out is the part worth planning.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Injected damp courses and re-rendered lower walls leave the bottom metre standing proud of everything above it. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. What comes off tells you what goes on.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Where the walls have been dry-lined over the old lath there is a void behind the board and no solid fixing until a batten is found. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Stone is far heavier than what is coming off.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.