Worktop replacement in Fulham

Yes. Fulham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of the borough. A shared-use bay allows a paid stay up to a set maximum, and that maximum is routinely shorter than the working day the job needs. 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 come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The lean-to roof drains into a valley gutter against the addition next door, and a long leak there shows at the head of the kitchen wall rather than on the ceiling. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Nothing goes back on carcasses the building has pulled out of square. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.

A communal flight is out of use while a piece is on it, so the carry is timed so nobody is trying to pass on a half-landing. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked. Camera enforcement gives nobody the chance to explain, where an officer on foot at least sees a tail lift down and stone coming off it. 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 particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. 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 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. 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 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.

A single long run down one side puts every cut-out in one piece, so the sink, the hob and any drainer grooves all take material out of the same length. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Where the seam went before is not where it goes now. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. A straight swap is the exception in an older room. 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. 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. Units stay, so the flat is usable that evening.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The wall has not moved, and neither has the problem.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. The bathroom upstairs sits directly over the kitchen, so its waste comes down in a boxed corner from floor to ceiling that no worktop is going to move. What the old top has been hiding is usually a floor that settled towards the back and units that were never fixed back to the wall. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Many of these had a bathroom or a WC built onto the far end of the addition, so the room now ends at a stud wall rather than at the original brickwork. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. What is under the old top is the real question.

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. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. It usually explains the odd filler piece or strip of beading in the existing run that nobody could account for. Packing the carcasses is part of the replacement.