Worktop replacement in Maryland

Yes. Maryland is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E15. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. A resident bay and a shared-use bay can sit on the same street under different rules, and it is usually the shared one a visitor permit or a ticket touches. 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.

Ceilings in the principal rooms are three metres or more, so a full-height panel behind a hob is a taller piece here than the same kitchen would need anywhere else. 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. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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.

The measurement that decides everything is the diagonal between the underside of the flight above and the outer edge of the turn below it. 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. Where it will not come out whole it comes out in sections. A shared-use bay allows a paid stay up to a set maximum, and that maximum is routinely shorter than the working day the job needs. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A void week is the entire schedule. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A plumber either side of us.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Any overhang gets underpinned first. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Same footprint, different tolerances. 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. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Owners phase this work; a void period cannot.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.

The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. What the old top has been hiding is usually a floor that settled towards the back and units that were never fixed back to the wall. What is under the old top is the real question.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. 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. A cast iron soil stack runs down the outside of the rear wall, so moving the sink means a fresh penetration through solid brick. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Chipboard carcasses get bracing before stone lands on them.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. Sound carcasses are the one condition.