Worktop replacement in Pratts Bottom

Yes. Pratts Bottom is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR6. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. 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. Two carries in one day doubles what the distance costs. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

Doorways are low and narrow, which is a genuine constraint on piece length before anything else is considered. These are the multi-piece jobs: long runs, a large island and often a range cooker that cannot be moved, so the stone is templated in several pieces and how the vein runs across the joins matters. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate was scribed thin. Stone cannot be.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. 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. 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. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop fabrication. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. 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. The fastest upgrade a sound kitchen has. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. One flat out of use at a time.

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. 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. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. What is behind the old top decides the day. Have a fitter or joiner fix and level the island units beforehand, and get the sink, taps, hob and any range on site before templating so we cut to the actual appliances. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Notice goes out before the crew is booked.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The range sits in a former chimney opening, so the pieces either side of it are short, unequal and cut to brickwork rather than to a module. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Stone is far heavier than what is coming off.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. 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. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Nothing goes out until the route back to the van is clear.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Solid walls hold their heat and their damp, and anything sealed against them is worth looking at again a season later. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Units checked before stone goes on them.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Out and in happen along the same protected route.