Worktop replacement in Crouch End

Yes. Crouch End is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N8. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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.

Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Everything the last fit ignored is visible for a morning. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured.

A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. 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 strip-out is planned around it. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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 is inside the three we do most here, under worktop installation. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. 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. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. One plot replaced years on, matched or otherwise.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. 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. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Same footprint, different tolerances. Have a plumber booked to disconnect the sink, tap and waste first thing and reconnect after we have gone, and clear the hallway and stairs completely so we can carry slabs through the house. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. A tired carcass is said before, not discovered after.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. 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.

Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. It usually explains the odd filler piece or strip of beading in the existing run that nobody could account for. A straight swap is the exception in an older room.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. It sets what the day actually looks like.