Worktop replacement in Kingston Hill

Yes. Kingston Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT2. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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 timed bay does not cover a strip-out and a fit. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

Internal walls are lath and plaster on studs with heavy framing behind, so a fixing finds either nothing at all or something very solid. These are the multi-piece jobs: long runs, a large island and often a range cooker that cannot be moved, so the stone is templated in several pieces and how the vein runs across the joins matters. What is under the old top is the real question. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Packing the carcasses is part of the replacement.

Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. 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. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old stone is heavier going out than it looked coming 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. No sealing schedule for anybody to forget. 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. The annexe top goes in on the same day.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Yield is worked out fresh for the new material. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The laminate has been covering it up. Have a fitter or joiner fix and level the island units beforehand, and get the sink, taps, hob and any range on site before templating so we cut to the actual appliances. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Whoever lives there hears the timing first.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. Found at template, not on fit day.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. 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. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. A run that flexed under laminate gets support now.

A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. 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. A lantern or a rooflight over the room throws raking light across every horizontal surface, which shows a lipped join from the far side of the kitchen. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Nothing new goes down until the run reads level end to end.

Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Old flues run inside the wall behind the run, so a deep fixing finds a void about as often as it finds brick. Old top out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon, with a plumber either side of us. How old the kitchen is decides how long preparation takes.