Worktop replacement in Manor Park

Yes. Manor Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E12. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. 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. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Where the kitchen has taken the bay, the end of the room is three facets of glass set at angles and there is no straight wall left to finish against. 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. Units kept, surface changed, one day. 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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up.

A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. 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. Where it will not come out whole it comes out in sections. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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. Access out counts as much as access in.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop installation comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A void week is the entire schedule. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A plumber either side of us.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. 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 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. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Found at template, not on fit day. 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. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. 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.

A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. The rear wall of the addition carries both the back door and the window, which leaves very little unbroken wall for a run to sit against. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Chipboard carcasses get bracing before stone lands on them.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Waste needs a space of its own and the street rarely offers one.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. 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.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Cornice runs round the head of the wall, so the wall units stop under it and the splashback band is trapped between two things that are not going to move. 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 is under the old top is the real question.