Worktop replacement in Teddington

Yes. Teddington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW11. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. 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. Nothing goes out until the route back to the van is clear. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The consumer unit and the meter tails often sit in a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, and that cupboard has to stay reachable whatever goes in around it. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. Tile beds and adhesive come off before the new top goes on. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.

Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. 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. Half a day can go on the strip-out where the way in is tight. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. 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 old tops leave in one movement rather than piece by piece.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Four flats, four days, no scaffold week. 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. Cam-lock carcasses get braced before stone lands.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. 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. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. A straight swap is the exception in an older room. Unlock the side gate and clear the alley of bins, bikes and pots, and arrange a plumber for the sink and an electrician if the hob is hard-wired. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. The surface changes and the kitchen stays the one they know.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Where the van must move, the waste goes on first.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. A radiator sits under the rear window on the outside wall, and moving it is plumbing that belongs before the template rather than after it. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. A replacement is measured against the walls as they are now.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. The wall has not moved, and neither has the problem.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. 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. The shape is measured again, not copied off the old top.