Worktop replacement in Lots Road

Yes. Lots Road is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW10. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. On an event day the controls are wider, tighter and enforced harder than the signage suggests on any other morning of the week. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Original brickwork is uneven by ten millimetres or more across a bay, so the back edge is scribed to the actual face rather than to a line. Many of these kitchens are island pods in the middle of an open plan with waste and feeds coming up through the floor, so the island cannot be nudged to suit the stone and the stone gets cut to suit the island. Sound carcasses are the one condition. If the building kept its old goods lift, use it and stop worrying about piece size - that is rare enough in SW10 to be worth planning the job around.

This is a working riverside corner with the creek, boatyards and ongoing construction traffic, so road closures and contractor gate control are routine and worth checking the morning of. New riverside blocks want a booked goods lift and a delivery slot, while the loft conversions often have a wide freight lift left over from the industrial use, which is the easiest access in the whole borough when it is available. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. 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. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. 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. A day, not a project.

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. The units stay, the surface changes. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. Book the goods lift and loading bay for the day, clear a straight route through the open plan, and have a plumber on hand for the island services coming up through the floor. Access in a tenanted flat depends on the tenant, so the template and fitting dates are agreed with whoever actually holds the keys. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sound carcasses are the condition.