Worktop replacement in Gloucester Road

Yes. Gloucester Road is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW7. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The lift is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a turn at every half-landing. A mansion block is a logistics job before it is a stone job. The old top hid it; the new one will not. 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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The alcove was never square and it still is not.

Standing a three-metre length on end takes more headroom outside the car than inside it, and a low lobby ceiling is what actually stops it. 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. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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. 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. 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. 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. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. 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.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

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. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone. Get the managing agent's or freeholder's approval and the permitted hours confirmed beforehand, and agree with the porter who protects the communal carpet, stonework and lift. 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. The plumber is booked by whoever holds the contract.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The communal stair is stone with a cast iron balustrade, and the winders leave very little room to turn a long piece. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Cutting the old top out saves the units below it.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Managed buildings allow deliveries through the lift only between set hours, and a day that overruns them finishes with the last piece still on the pavement. 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. Half a day can go on the strip-out where the way in is tight.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Two loads, one space, one day.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. 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. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.