Worktop replacement in Coney Hall

Yes. Coney Hall is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR4. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Many have been extended at the rear since being sold, so the kitchen is half original and half newer with a floor junction between the two. Plaster bonded straight onto concrete comes away with the bottom course of tiles, leaving a band behind the upstand. Units kept, surface changed, one day. Taking out the rear lobby leaves a patched floor and a new opening, so we insist the plaster and floor are finished before templating or the run comes out 8mm shy.

Estate roads with parking on both sides and narrow front drives that only take one car, so the van often sits on the road and a slab goes over the front garden path. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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 strip-out is planned around it. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Height change is checked before we cut. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. Sort a parking bay or permit near the entrance, confirm the lift is in service and get us the door codes, and tell us about any asbestos survey on the flat before we start stripping out. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Sound carcasses are the condition.