Worktop replacement in Coombe (Croydon)

Yes. Coombe (Croydon) is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These houses are three storeys on a small footprint, so the kitchen is on the ground floor and everything else is stacked above it. The room itself is the easy part: walls are plumb, corners are square and the floor is flat, so scribes are minimal and joins can be tight. The units have settled with the floor and get re-levelled. A partition that gives when you lean on it will give under someone sitting at an overhang, and a bonded mitre nearby is where that movement shows first. 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.

The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. 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 dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. 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.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Four flats, four days, no scaffold week. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Cam-lock carcasses get braced before stone lands.

A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The strip-out is the part worth planning. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Where a peninsula returns into a stud wall the load has to sit on the units, with the wall doing no more than steadying it. 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. Book the service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Somebody has to own the skip.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Underfloor heating in a screed rules out fixing into the floor and rules out standing anything heavy on a single point. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Chipboard carcasses get bracing before stone lands on them.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The old carcasses are rarely level and never were.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The kitchen is usually part of the living space, so three edges are read from a sofa rather than from standing height at the sink. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. The old cut-outs rarely match where the new appliances go.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. The kitchen and the dining space share one room front to back, with the stair enclosure taking a bite out of one side of it. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. Tile beds and adhesive come off before the new top goes on.