Worktop replacement in Rush Green

Yes. Rush Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM7. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Plaster in the older half is a sand and cement backing on brick while the newer half is board on dabs, so the same fixing bites in one wall and breaks through the other. 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. Old tops were scribed to a wall that has moved since. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. 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.

Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. 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. Timing the two carries is most of the planning. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Old top out Tuesday, tenant in on Friday. 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. The flat earns nothing while it sits empty.

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. The old cut-outs prove nothing. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. What is behind the old top decides the 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. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. A leaseholder still needs the building to consent.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The kitchen door opens inwards into the middle of a run, so the usable length of that wall stops well short of the corner. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. How old the kitchen is decides how long preparation takes.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. The old tops leave in one movement rather than piece by piece.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The beading was covering a bowed wall.

How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. 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. A surface swap is the fastest upgrade available on a kitchen that is otherwise sound. Same day, because the void is the whole budget.