Worktop replacement in Greenford

Yes. Greenford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are UB6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. 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. Two loads, one space, one day. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Plaster in the older half is a sand and cement backing on brick while the newer half is board on dabs, so the same fixing bites in one wall and breaks through the other. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. Units kept, surface changed, one day. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The old cut-out was hiding the notch you now need.

A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. 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 old tops have to go somewhere as well.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. 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. Housings set out for laminate are checked first. 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. 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 is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. 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. Unlock the side gate and clear the alley of bins, bikes and pots, and arrange a plumber for the sink and an electrician if the hob is hard-wired. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Void periods do not extend to suit a lead time.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. Internal walls are hollow clay block or stud rather than solid brick, so two points a metre apart on the same wall want two different fixings. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Door fronts and drawers get checked against the new thickness.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. The drains run down the side alley to a gully and an inspection cover near the back door, and the sink waste has always gone out on that side of the house. The junction between the old floor and the extension floor is where a run crossing it needs packing before stone goes on. What is under the old top is the real question.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. A serving hatch through to the dining room is common, and closing one up leaves a panel of newer wall exactly where the run passes. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. A thicker top changes what clears the top drawer.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Appliance gaps are checked against the new thickness.