Worktop replacement in Globe Town

Yes. Globe Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E2. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The internal stair is usually a straight flight with a tight top landing, and it is the landing rather than the flight that is the limit. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. The wall behind the old top has not been seen in years. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. A postformed top swallowed the fall. This will not.

Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. 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. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The fastest upgrade a sound kitchen has. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. One flat out of use at a time.

The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A run that flexed under laminate gets support now. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The alcove was never square and it still is 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. A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Whoever lives there hears the timing first.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. The ceiling is a concrete soffit with a skim on it, so there is nothing to fix into overhead and no void to hide anything in. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The tiles above will want attention once the old top goes.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. These are built in dense concrete, so support for a peninsula or an end panel goes in with proper anchors rather than plugs. Plaster bonded straight onto concrete comes away with the bottom course of tiles, leaving a band behind the upstand. Old tops were scribed to a wall that has moved since.

Order is what matters: a slab is templated before it is cut, so an uncut slab is straightforward and one already machined for another kitchen is not. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Chosen against the doors that are staying.