Worktop replacement in Crayford

Yes. Crayford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA1. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Services run on the surface in these buildings, so conduit and pipework cross the wall behind the units and stand proud of it. Converted warehouses put the kitchen against original brick or blockwork that has never been made flat, so scribes of 15 to 20mm along a run are normal and every piece is templated to the wall exactly as it is rather than to a drawing. The units have settled with the floor and get re-levelled. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. What is behind the old top decides the day.

Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. 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. Old material is stacked outside rather than left along the route. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Same day, because the void is the whole budget. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Repairable in place beats replaced whole.

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. Joins move onto the gables this time round. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The beading was covering a bowed wall. Book the goods lift and loading bay for the day, clear a straight route through the open plan, and have a plumber on hand for the island services coming up through the floor. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Strip-out and fit inside one access window.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Booked delivery windows on a managed estate run to an hour, and a worktop install does not happen inside an hour. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Whether the strip-out is a cut-up job is settled at template.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Painted brick is flat nowhere, and raked-back mortar joints leave a line no straightedge agrees with. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Whatever the old top hid comes to light.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Exposed brick and steel is the whole job here, because neither of them presents a flat plane to scribe to. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Same carcasses, straighter lines.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The return is remeasured even where it looks unchanged.