Worktop replacement in St Johns

Yes. St Johns is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE8, SE4. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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. The strip-out waits until the new stone has somewhere to stand. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Ceilings in the addition are lower than in the front rooms, so the band of wall between the worktop and the wall units is shorter than the rest of the house suggests. 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. A replacement is measured against the walls as they are now. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. What is behind the old top decides the day.

Two people will walk a two-metre piece in through a front door; the same hall with a three-metre piece wants four, purely because nobody can let go halfway. 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. A laminate run comes out easier than stone goes in. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Loading out is loading in, done in reverse and heavier.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Repairable in place beats replaced whole. 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A deposit deduction rarely covers a new top.

A single long run down one side puts every cut-out in one piece, so the sink, the hob and any drainer grooves all take material out of the same length. 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. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The beading was covering a bowed wall. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Strip-out and fit inside one access window.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. Nothing changes hands until after the template. Lower ground floor kitchens are reached by a stair with a winder in it, and the head height over that winder is lower than the room at either end. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. An old kitchen has moved, and the stone is cut to that.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. Two carries in one day doubles what the distance costs.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. The front door is often the cheapest hundred millimetres on the route, because a door lifted off its hinges gives back the width its own thickness was taking. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Strip out first, then measure what is actually there.