Worktop replacement in Goodmayes

Yes. Goodmayes is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. 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. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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.

Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. 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. Where it will not come out whole it comes out in sections. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Housings set out for laminate are checked first. 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 carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning.

Three runs is three scribes and three separate lifts, so a U takes longer on site than its metreage suggests even on a day when nothing goes wrong. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. 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.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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. 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. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. 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.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. The old tops have to go somewhere as well.

How the slab has been stored is worth telling us, because stone kept flat is not stone off a rack. How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. 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. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. 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. Cutting a top down indoors means emptying the room first.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Three runs means two internal corners, and each corner is a decision about mitre or butt joint before anything is nested. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first.