Worktop replacement in Fortis Green

Yes. Fortis Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N10, N2. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. Old tops were scribed to a wall that has moved since. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The old cut-out was hiding the notch you now need.

Two people will walk a two-metre piece in through a front door; the same hall with a three-metre piece wants four, purely because nobody can let go halfway. 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. Disconnection happens before the old top is lifted, not during. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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 work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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. 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Housings set out for laminate are checked first.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Level the units first, measure the shape second. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured. 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. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Programme work takes the flats in sequence.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. Same footprint, different tolerances.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Carcasses stay. Surface changes. That is the whole of it. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. The front door is often the cheapest hundred millimetres on the route, because a door lifted off its hinges gives back the width its own thickness was taking. 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. The strip-out is planned around it.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. It usually explains the odd filler piece or strip of beading in the existing run that nobody could account for. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.