Worktop replacement in Moorgate

Yes. Moorgate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC2M, EC2Y. It is worked on our the City run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Goods access exists because the building had it when it was an office, which usually makes the carry the easiest part of the job. The room itself is the easy part: walls are plumb, corners are square and the floor is flat, so scribes are minimal and joins can be tight. Units kept, surface changed, one day. Windowless interiors are lit by spots and LED strip, which is unforgiving on a bad joint - dry-fit the joint and check it under the client's own lighting before it is glued.

Moorgate and London Wall are busy multi-lane routes with no stopping, so deliveries go into building basements with height barriers, or onto short side-street windows early in the day. Ongoing construction across this fringe means hoardings and lane closures change frequently, so confirm the approach the morning of the fit. 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 strip-out is planned around it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. 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.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. 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 service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. 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.