Worktop replacement in Hampton

Yes. Hampton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW12. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. 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 old tops have to go somewhere as well. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Where a side return has been infilled, the join between old brick and new blockwork lands mid-run and the two faces are never in one plane. 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 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. Same footprint, different tolerances.

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. The strip-out is planned around it. 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. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Access out counts as much as access in.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Between tenancies is the only window there is.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Joins move onto the gables this time round. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now. 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. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Notice goes out before the crew is booked.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The return is remeasured even where it looks unchanged.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. A semi has a side passage, and whether it is wide enough to carry a piece flat and turn it in at the back door is the first thing worth measuring. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. What the last fitter did to the wall shows up on strip-out.

The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. 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. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. Waste needs a space of its own and the street rarely offers one.

The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. How the slab has been stored is worth telling us, because stone kept flat is not stone off a rack. 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. A surface swap is the fastest upgrade available on a kitchen that is otherwise sound. One plot replaced years on, matched or otherwise.