Worktop replacement in Hainault

Yes. Hainault is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

A minority of these are non-traditional precast types, and in those the inside face of the outer wall is a panel between columns rather than a masonry wall. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. The fabric gets checked while it is open. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Same footprint, different tolerances.

Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. 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. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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. 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 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 person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Chosen against the doors that are staying.

Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. 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.

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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now. 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. Where the provider has set the specification the material choice was made once for a great many kitchens, and the useful work is meeting it exactly rather than proposing something else on the day. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Nothing to reseal is the point in a let.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. Kitchens in this stock are compact and reasonably square, which makes the fixed lines a larger share of the total than the material is. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. A sound carcass takes stone; a soft one gets replaced first.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. There is nearly always a boxed soil stack or a service riser in a corner of the run, and it is rarely mentioned at enquiry. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. The wall behind the old top is rarely the wall on the drawing.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Windows and doors were replaced across whole streets on one programme, so the kitchen window is a plastic frame in the old opening with a deep lined reveal. Anything that has to be held back goes into concrete with proper anchors rather than into a plug and a hope. Old fixings come out of soft brick and better ones go in.

Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. 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. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. A straight swap is the exception in an older room.