Worktop replacement in Collier Row

Yes. Collier Row is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM5. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. 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.

Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. Chipboard carcasses under the sink swollen from a slow leak will not take stone and get replaced before fit day. What is under the old top is the real question. Garage-side utilities are common here, so we usually template the kitchen and the utility together and cut both from the same slab batch to keep the colour consistent.

Wide estate roads with verges, individual driveways and garages, and unrestricted parking on most streets, so the van gets close and the carry is short and level. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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. It sets what the day actually looks like. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Small kitchens in a shared house are all short runs and tight cut-out spacing, which is more bench work per square metre than one large kitchen would be. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Where a single building holds several small kitchens, the work arrives as one job rather than four, and it should be cut off the same slab run so the batches genuinely match. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The laminate has been covering it up. 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 plumber disconnects before we arrive and reconnects after we leave, and that is worth booking early. Units kept, surface changed.