Worktop replacement in Notting Hill

Yes. Notting Hill 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. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. 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 strip-out waits until the new stone has somewhere to stand. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The rear room is generous with a chimney breast in one corner, so the run gains a return and two scribed ends whatever the plan drew. 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. A replacement is measured against the walls as they are now. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The old top hid it. The drawing will not.

Boxed-in pipework running along the skirting looks harmless until a loaded trolley has to pass it. 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 old top leaves by the route the new one arrives on. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. 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. Loading out is loading in, done in reverse and heavier.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A void week is the entire schedule. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A plumber either side of us.

Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. 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. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Nothing about it is a discovery on fitting day. 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. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. One day out of use, agreed in advance.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. The party wall is the straightest surface in the house and everything else has moved away from it over a century. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. Chipboard that has taken water will not take stone.

Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Where the walls have been dry-lined over the old lath there is a void behind the board and no solid fixing until a batten is found. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Water damage under a sink is the usual find.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. These were built with a scullery that has since been swallowed by an extension, leaving a change of floor level roughly where the run crosses. Each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped, because nothing in the room is straight enough to drop into. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Same shape, different cut list.