Worktop replacement in Paddington

Yes. Paddington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W2. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. 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. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard bellies at a taped internal angle, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. Nothing goes back on carcasses the building has pulled out of square. Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Same footprint, different tolerances.

Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. 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. Where it will not come out whole it comes out in sections. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. Replacing one plot years after handover is the problem nobody plans for, because a quartz colour can be reordered and a granite block cannot. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Booked at short notice, because the notice is short. New-build kitchens are usually smaller than the plan suggests once the appliances are in, so the usable run is shorter than the drawn run. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Nothing else in the room has to change.

A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now. Book the service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Out and in on the same permission.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. A straight swap is the exception in an older room.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. Booked delivery windows on a managed estate run to an hour, and a worktop install does not happen inside an hour. 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. Cutting a top down indoors means emptying the room first.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Plasterboard partitions mean light scribes and clean joins, and the fabrication effort moves to the visible faces instead. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Nothing new goes down until the run reads level end to end.