Worktop replacement in Shadwell

Yes. Shadwell is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard bellies at a taped internal angle, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. The room itself is the easy part: walls are plumb, corners are square and the floor is flat, so scribes are minimal and joins can be tight. What is under the old top is the real question. Heavy-use family kitchens here get an honest conversation about edge chipping and overhang support rather than the thinnest profile available.

The through road is a red route and the market street is closed to vehicles during trading, so timing the drop matters more than distance. Estate blocks have small lifts and long deck walkways; the new towers have a service lift but need a permit-to-work and a booked slot from the managing agent. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. 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. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop design & quotation. Where an annexe has been built or converted, its floor and its walls are newer than the main house and behave differently under the same run. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A day, not a project. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. Book the service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed.