Worktop replacement in Plumstead

Yes. Plumstead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE18. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. 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. Old stone is heavier going out than it looked coming in. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

The communal stair is wide and handsome and the flat door at the top of it is a standard leaf, which is where a long piece stops. 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. Same units, straighter line, better surface. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It was there long before we were.

The front door is often the cheapest hundred millimetres on the route, because a door lifted off its hinges gives back the width its own thickness was taking. 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. Cutting a top down indoors means emptying the room first. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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. The van has to stand through both halves of the day.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Old top out Tuesday, tenant in on Friday. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. The flat earns nothing while it sits empty.

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. Same shape, different cut list. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Disposal is named, not assumed.

Carcasses stay. Surface changes. That is the whole of it. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. A one-hour window will not hold a two-way job.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Kitchens in the upper flats often sit in the return wing at half-landing level, so there are three or four steps inside the flat before the room is reached at all. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. The wall behind the old top has not been seen in years.

Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Same day, because the void is the whole budget.

A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Gas, waste and later wiring were boxed in against the wall long after the house was built, and that boxing is what the run has to clear. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Door fronts and drawers get checked against the new thickness.