Worktop replacement in Tollington

Yes. Tollington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N4, N7. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Islington. Where a loading concession applies at all, it holds only while something is being carried, which makes it a way to unload rather than a way to park. 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. Loading out is loading in, done in reverse and heavier. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The kitchen occupies the ground floor of the addition with a garden door at the far end, so there is a second way in that is narrower than the front door and a great deal shorter. 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. The fabric gets checked while it is open. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The beading was covering a bowed wall.

A tiled hall floor takes a dropped corner badly, so boards go down over the tiles before anything comes through the door. 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. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. 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. Two carries in one day doubles what the distance costs.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. Where a single building holds several small kitchens, the work arrives as one job rather than four, and it should be cut off the same slab run so the batches genuinely match. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them. Small kitchens in a shared house are all short runs and tight cut-out spacing, which is more bench work per square metre than one large kitchen would be. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Between tenancies is the only window there is.

Corner sinks and corner hobs sit exactly where the joint wants to be, so on an L the cut-out positions get settled before the join positions do. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A thinner top drops the run against the tiles. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Strip out first, then measure what is actually there. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Whoever lives there hears the timing first.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The tiles above will want attention once the old top goes.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The original front door is narrow and the hall is often the only way in, which puts a ceiling on the longest single piece. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. A sound carcass takes stone; a soft one gets replaced first.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. One leg of an L is nearly always the working run and the other little more than a landing space, but both are templated, cut and edged to the same standard. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Breakfast bars get the steel they never had.