Worktop replacement in Shacklewell

Yes. Shacklewell is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E8. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. Half a day of parking buys half a job. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Where the addition is single storey the ceiling follows a lean-to roof, so one side of the room loses height and a full-height panel has a sloping stop. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. Tile beds and adhesive come off before the new top goes on. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day.

Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing 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. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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 carry happens twice here, so the distance counts twice.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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.

The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Any overhang gets underpinned first. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. 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. Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Owners phase this work; a void period cannot.

What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. 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. Half a day can go on the strip-out where the way in is tight.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Original quarry tiles survive under a later vinyl in many of these, and lifting the units off them shows how far the floor has fallen towards the garden end. 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. A replacement is measured against the walls as they are now.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. It was there long before we were.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The outrigger shares a party wall with the addition next door for its whole length, so one long side of the kitchen is solid brick with another kitchen on the far side of it. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. Chipboard that has taken water will not take stone.