Worktop replacement in Streatham Hill

Yes. Streatham Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW2. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. The lift car is usually too short and too low to take a full-length piece flat or on edge, so stone either goes up the communal stairs with their half-landings and winders, or the run is designed with joins that suit the staircase rather than the kitchen. Sound carcasses are the one condition. The 1930s galley kitchens are barely 1.8m wide, which means a standard 600mm top plus an opposite run leaves under 600mm of walking space — check the client actually wants both sides before fabricating.

Several of the blocks are listed or in a conservation area, so no fixings to communal fabric and no propping doors open; lifts are original and small. The A23 is a red route with no stopping, so unloading happens on side roads and the carry starts from there. 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. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. That is agreed before a plumber is booked. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A day, not a project. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. The units stay, the surface changes. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. 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. Get the managing agent's or freeholder's approval and the permitted hours confirmed beforehand, and agree with the porter who protects the communal carpet, stonework and lift. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Plumber either side of us.