Worktop replacement in Swiss Cottage

Yes. Swiss Cottage is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW3, NW6. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. 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 waste run is planned, not improvised. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

Inter-war purpose-built blocks have curved external walls and steel windows, so a run along an outside wall is following a genuine curve rather than a bow. A full stone piece is several times the weight of the laminate coming out, and there is rarely room to turn it on a half-landing. Same units, straighter line, better surface. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Nothing about it is a discovery on fitting day.

Goods lifts and passenger lifts fail differently: one has a rated load that matters, the other has a door aperture that matters more. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A deposit deduction rarely covers a new top. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Four flats, four days, no scaffold week.

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. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A corner that was butted can be mitred this time. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The laminate was scribed thin. Stone cannot be. 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. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. A tired carcass is said before, not discovered after.

The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Carcasses stay. Surface changes. That is the whole of it. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. Two loads, one space, one day.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. These blocks were built with a lift from new, which will usually take a worktop and almost never takes a full-length island piece. Waste from the old top goes down in loads the lift and the building will accept rather than in one trip. The wall behind the old top has not been seen in years.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. 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. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. What is behind the old top decides the day.

A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Permitted working hours, a porter and a booked lift set a hard finish time on the day whatever stage the fit has reached. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Units checked before stone goes on them.