Worktop replacement in Creekmouth

Yes. Creekmouth is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG11. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. 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. 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 work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Original brickwork is uneven by ten millimetres or more across a bay, so the back edge is scribed to the actual face rather than to a line. 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. Tile beds and adhesive come off before the new top goes on. An intruding steel column, a brick pier or a downstand breaks a run that would otherwise have been one clean piece. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Nothing about it is a discovery on fitting day.

Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. 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. Old material is stacked outside rather than left along the route. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Between tenancies is the only window there is. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. One plot replaced years on, matched or otherwise.

Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. 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. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The laminate was scribed thin. Stone cannot be. 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. Where the owner is not local, the decisions happen remotely, so photographs and a clear itemised drawing carry more weight than a showroom visit ever would. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Disposal is named, not assumed.

Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. What is behind the old top decides the day.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how far the stone has to be relieved changes which part of the slab the piece is cut from. It usually explains the odd filler piece or strip of beading in the existing run that nobody could account for. The beading was covering a bowed wall.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. The return is remeasured even where it looks unchanged.