Worktop replacement in Coney Hall

Yes. Coney Hall is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR4. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. 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. 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. The carry happens twice here, so the distance counts twice. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The rear door has a concrete step and a small canopy over it, and that step is the whole of the difference between the kitchen floor and the garden path. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The beading was covering a bowed wall.

A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. The room is cleared for the way out as much as the way in. 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. 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. Booking the bay for the whole day is the honest plan.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop splashbacks & upstands. 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A void week is the entire schedule.

A mitred corner is cut and dressed as a matched pair, and if either leg shifts by a millimetre on site the joint opens along its whole length rather than at one end. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Appliance gaps are checked against the new thickness. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Strip out first, then measure what is actually there. 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. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Somebody has to own the skip.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. 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. 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.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. 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. The old tops leave by the same route, so the carry out and the skip or van are planned alongside the carry in. Whether the strip-out is a cut-up job is settled at template.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. 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. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Butt-jointing over the gable puts the seam a few hundred millimetres back from the corner, below the eye line instead of straight across it. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The island top is the one that may want its own slab.