Worktop replacement in New Cross Gate

Yes. New Cross Gate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE14. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.

The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. 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 material is stacked outside rather than left along the route. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Repairable in place beats replaced whole. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A deposit deduction rarely covers a new top.

Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. 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. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. A straight swap is the exception in an older room. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Whoever owns the carcasses owns that call.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. 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. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. The wall has not moved, and neither has the problem.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Whether the strip-out is a cut-up job is settled at template.

Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Height change is checked before we cut.

The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The strip-out waits until the new stone has somewhere to stand.