Worktop replacement in Collier Row

Yes. Collier Row is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM5. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

A boiler in a cupboard on the kitchen wall is normal in this stock, and its position is fixed by its flue. Post-war terraces have small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run, so runs are short and joins are rare, but there are usually two corners and a window cill to work around in a couple of metres. Old fixings come out of soft brick and better ones go in. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. 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.

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. 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. The room is cleared for the way out as much as the way in. 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. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The carry happens twice here, so the distance counts twice.

Often enough. It is one of the three, behind worktop installation. The template, the workshop and the installers are the same either way. Rooms in a shared house are let individually, so the work has to be done around whoever is still living in the building. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A void week is the entire schedule. A landlord ordering several kitchens at once is buying a specification once and then repeating it, so the early decisions are worth taking slowly. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A plumber either side of us.

A breakfast bar on the outer side is an overhang like any other, and the support under it is sized for people leaning on the end rather than for the weight of the stone alone. 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. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. 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. Empty the base units completely and have a plumber disconnect the sink, tap and any washing machine plumbed in under the worktop before we arrive. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. One day out of use, agreed in advance.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.

Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. 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. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. Booking the bay for the whole day is the honest plan.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Floors have usually settled towards the rear, so levelling means packing the units before the stone beds down. 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.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Old material is stacked outside rather than left along the route.