Worktop replacement in Cricklewood

Yes. Cricklewood is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW2. It is run from the Watford side, covering Hertfordshire & North London. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. A mansion block is a logistics job before it is a stone job. Units kept, surface changed, one day. First-floor maisonette kitchens are the recurring headache: the piece has to go up a domestic staircase with a half turn, so plan the joint before quoting a single length.

The Broadway is an A road with loading restrictions and bus lanes, so vans park in side streets and the crew carries. Mansion blocks vary wildly, some with a small original lift too shallow for a full slab and a stone staircase as the only alternative. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. 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 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. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. 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. Found at template, not on fit day. Get the managing agent's or freeholder's approval and the permitted hours confirmed beforehand, and agree with the porter who protects the communal carpet, stonework and lift. 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. Plumber either side of us.