Worktop replacement in Greenwich

Yes. Greenwich is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE10. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of the borough. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on 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. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The addition wall is half a brick thick in places and has usually had a damp course injected and been re-plastered, which leaves it neither flat nor consistent. 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. Units kept, surface changed, one day. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured.

The measurement that decides everything is the diagonal between the underside of the flight above and the outer edge of the turn below 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. The way out is measured with the way in. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Nothing goes out until the route back to the van is clear.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. 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 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Same footprint, different tolerances. 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. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Replacement suits occupied stock better than a strip-out.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. The old tops leave in one movement rather than piece by piece.

Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. 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. What is under the old top is the real question.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Nothing in a house of this age is square, and the kitchen is usually the part that has been altered most often. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Whatever the old top hid comes to light.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.