Worktop replacement in Fish Island

Yes. Fish Island is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Poured screed over steel decking can fall away across a long run, so level is checked across the whole room before anything is packed. Converted warehouses put the kitchen against original brick or blockwork that has never been made flat, so scribes of 15 to 20mm along a run are normal and every piece is templated to the wall exactly as it is rather than to a drawing. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in. An intruding steel column, a brick pier or a downstand breaks a run that would otherwise have been one clean piece. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Strip out first, then measure what is actually there.

A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. 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.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Cam-lock carcasses get braced before stone lands. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Housings set out for laminate are checked first.

Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The new pieces are nested, not traced off the old ones. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The old carcasses are rarely level and never were. Book the goods lift and loading bay for the day, clear a straight route through the open plan, and have a plumber on hand for the island services coming up through the floor. Nobody reseals a worktop annually in a let property, so a material that depends on being resealed is the wrong specification however well it photographs. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units stay, so the flat is usable that evening.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. The way out is measured with the way in.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Concrete or steel overhead means no fixings into the ceiling and no help from the structure for anything hung above the run. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Laminate hides a level that stone will not.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. A filler strip is evidence, not decoration.