Worktop replacement in Downham

Yes. Downham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR1, SE6. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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. Booking the bay for the whole day is the honest plan. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The kitchen sits at the rear with a door to the garden and a window over the sink, so the useful run is broken into two short lengths. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone.

The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. 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. Whether the strip-out is a cut-up job is settled at template. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Repairable in place beats replaced whole. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A deposit deduction rarely covers a new top.

Butt-jointing over the gable puts the seam a few hundred millimetres back from the corner, below the eye line instead of straight across it. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The island top is the one that may want its own slab. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor. Unlock the side gate and clear the alley of bins, bikes and pots, and arrange a plumber for the sink and an electrician if the hob is hard-wired. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Out and in on the same permission.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Ceilings are lath and plaster at the front and plasterboard in the extension, and the join between the two marks where the original back wall stood. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The old cut-outs rarely match where the new appliances go.

Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. These were built in short runs of six or eight houses, so the party walls are solid brick and the rear elevation is a straight line with no outriggers. The junction between the old floor and the extension floor is where a run crossing it needs packing before stone goes on. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The old cut-out was hiding the notch you now need.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. 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. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. Two carries in one day needs the route free for both.