Worktop replacement in Malden Rushett

Yes. Malden Rushett is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT9. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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 van has to stand through both halves of the day. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Deep original skirting is often left in behind the units, standing them off the wall, so the back edge of the stone is plotted where the carcasses actually sit. 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. Chipboard that has taken water will not take stone. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The alcove was never square and it still is not.

A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. 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. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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. A one-hour window will not hold a two-way job.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Booked at short notice, because the notice is short. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Nothing else in the room has to change.

Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Appliance gaps are checked against the new thickness. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone. 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. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sequenced around access rather than around the workshop.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. These were built late enough to have a damp course and proper footings, so the front of the house is close to true and the rear addition holding the kitchen is the part that has dropped. 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. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The island top is the one that may want its own slab.

A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. The shape is already there to be measured, which makes the template straightforward and leaves the strip-out as the part that actually needs planning. Level the units first, measure the shape second.

The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.