Worktop replacement in Putney Vale

Yes. Putney Vale is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW15. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. 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. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Original quarry-tiled floors sit lower than a later screed, so a run crossing that junction needs the units packed to one level. 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. Units kept, surface changed, one day. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up.

A front path with a gate and a turn or two adds handling before the door is even reached, and every handling movement is another chance to catch a corner. 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. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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 splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. One flat out of use at a time. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Chosen against the doors that are staying.

A mitred corner is cut and dressed as a matched pair, and if either leg shifts by a millimetre on site the joint opens along its whole length rather than at one end. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A corner that was butted can be mitred this time. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Found at template, not on fit day. 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. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Notice goes out before the crew is booked.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The consumer unit and the meter often sit high on the wall at one end of the kitchen, and neither of them is going to move to suit a run of stone. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Nothing new goes down until the run reads level end to end.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Butt-jointing over the gable puts the seam a few hundred millimetres back from the corner, below the eye line instead of straight across it. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Old runs are rarely square, and stone will not forgive it.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. The kitchen sits at the rear with a door to the garden and a window over the sink, so the useful run is broken into two short lengths. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. What is under the old top is the real question.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. The plaster is a thick float and set over brick that has blown in patches, so a wall sounds solid in one place and hollow a hand-span away. Old top out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon, with a plumber either side of us. How old the kitchen is decides how long preparation takes.