Worktop replacement in Marks Gate

Yes. Marks Gate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. 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. 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. The van has to stand through both halves of the day. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Ceilings sit at about two point three metres and the head of the window is close under them, so a unit over the window has very little wall to hold onto. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. The shell is the constant here; the surface is not. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured.

Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. 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 dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. A one-hour window will not hold a two-way job.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. 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. 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. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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.

Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. 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. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Same footprint, different tolerances. Sort a parking bay or permit near the entrance, confirm the lift is in service and get us the door codes, and tell us about any asbestos survey on the flat before we start stripping out. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. 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.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. The strip-out waits until the new stone has somewhere to stand.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. The carry is the constraint: a single stair with tight half-landings, or deck access with a long walk from the lift. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. How old the kitchen is decides how long preparation takes.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. No money is taken before the template happens. Windows sit high and the sill line crosses the middle of the run, which limits what can go above the worktop. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. A twenty-year-old run is replaced to its own shape.

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. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. 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. It decides whether the old top leaves whole.