Worktop replacement in Elm Park

Yes. Elm Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM12. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. 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. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The kitchen sits at the rear with a back door beside it, so the carry is short and comes in from the garden rather than through the house. 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. A new top on a settled run needs the run corrected first. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.

A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. 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. Both movements are planned as one. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A deposit deduction rarely covers a new top. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Four flats, four days, no scaffold week.

Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The return is remeasured even where it looks unchanged. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Expected downtime beats discovered downtime.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Solid walls with no cavity have often been dry-lined internally at some point, and the lining thickness varies from wall to wall. The junction between the old floor and the extension floor is where a run crossing it needs packing before stone goes on. The fabric gets checked while it is open.

Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. Nothing is payable in advance of the template. Crittall windows were swapped for plastic ones in openings that were made good rather than rebuilt, which leaves reveals that are neither straight nor equal. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Water damage under a sink is the usual find.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured.

The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Cam-lock carcasses get braced before stone lands.