Worktop replacement in Notting Dale

Yes. Notting Dale is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W11. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. 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. Waste needs a space of its own and the street rarely offers one. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The staircase rises over the back room in a good number of these, so a sloping bulkhead sits over one end of the run and a piece cannot be stood on edge beneath it. 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. Nothing goes back on carcasses the building has pulled out of square. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one.

Once a long piece is in on the diagonal there is no room left for anyone else, so it travels up alone and is met on the landing above. 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. Whether the strip-out is a cut-up job is settled at template. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. A timed bay does not cover a strip-out and a fit.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. One flat out of use at a time. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Chosen against the doors that are staying.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Height change is checked before we cut. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It was there long before we were. 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. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Two visits mean two people taking a day off.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Pieces get staged in the ground floor lobby and sent up singly, which needs somewhere to stand them where nobody will walk into them. 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. Two carries in one day needs the route free for both.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. Lower ground floor kitchens are reached by a stair with a winder in it, and the head height over that winder is lower than the room at either end. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Water damage under a sink is the usual find.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. A cast iron soil stack runs down the outside of the rear wall, so moving the sink means a fresh penetration through solid brick. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Cutting the old top out saves the units below it.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The old top hid it. The drawing will not.