Worktop replacement in Fairlop

Yes. Fairlop is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. 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 waste run is planned, not improvised. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

A minority of these are non-traditional precast types, and in those the inside face of the outer wall is a panel between columns rather than a masonry wall. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. A new top on a settled run needs the run corrected first. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The stack was boxed in after the kitchen went in.

Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. 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 old top leaves by the route the new one arrives on. A gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre in. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A plumber either side of us. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. The fastest upgrade a sound kitchen has.

An island carries its own edge detail all the way round, so a mitred 100mm apron on four sides is four mitres cut, bonded and polished before the piece ever leaves the bench. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The new pieces are nested, not traced off the old ones. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. A postformed top swallowed the fall. This will not. Sort a parking bay or permit near the entrance, confirm the lift is in service and get us the door codes, and tell us about any asbestos survey on the flat before we start stripping out. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. A tired carcass is said before, not discovered after.

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 managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. One flat out of use at a time.

They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Dense concrete and blockwork mean the wall cannot be chased back or packed out, so the stone carries the scribe. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. An old kitchen has moved, and the stone is cut to that.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. 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 sink is chosen before the cut list is set.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. Windows and doors were replaced across whole streets on one programme, so the kitchen window is a plastic frame in the old opening with a deep lined reveal. Plaster bonded straight onto concrete comes away with the bottom course of tiles, leaving a band behind the upstand. The fabric gets checked while it is open.