Worktop replacement in Old Malden

Yes. Old Malden is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT4. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. 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. Loading out is loading in, done in reverse and heavier. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

There is a chimney breast on each flank wall, and the one in the kitchen carried a boiler flue rather than a fireplace, so the recess beside it is shallow. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. Everything the last fit ignored is visible for a morning. A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.

A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. 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. Nothing new comes down a hall still full of old top. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. 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. Two carries in one day doubles what the distance costs.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A plumber either side of us. 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. The fastest upgrade a sound kitchen has.

Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. 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. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The old cut-out was hiding the notch you now need. Unlock the side gate and clear the alley of bins, bikes and pots, and arrange a plumber for the sink and an electrician if the hob is hard-wired. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. The plumber is booked by whoever holds the contract.

The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost.

A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Same shape, different cut list.

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. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. The old cut-outs prove nothing.