Worktop replacement in Valence

Yes. Valence is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM8. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. 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 waste leaves with us, so the van has to still be there. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The first kitchen units were metal and screwed straight into the blockwork, and their plugs are still in the wall behind whatever plaster went over them. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. What the last fitter did to the wall shows up on strip-out. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate was scribed thin. Stone cannot be.

Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. 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. Two carries in one day needs the route free for both. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. 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. Both loads want the same few metres of kerb.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. A licensed shared house has fire-door and escape-route rules that decide how and when stone can be carried through the common parts. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Specified for wear rather than for the photograph. Four kitchens ordered together take one template visit and one delivery, and that is where the saving comes from rather than from a discount on the stone. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. No sealing schedule for anybody to forget.

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. Old runs are rarely square, and stone will not forgive it. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. What is behind the old top decides the day. Sort a parking bay or permit near the entrance, confirm the lift is in service and get us the door codes, and tell us about any asbestos survey on the flat before we start stripping out. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Nothing to reseal is the point in a let.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Floors are a sand and cement screed over concrete, laid fast and worn since, so they are hard, solid and seldom flat. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Twenty years of settlement is measured, not argued with.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. The beading was covering a bowed wall.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Waste goes out the way the stone came in, so the route stays clear.

A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. The old tops leave by the same route, so the carry out and the skip or van are planned alongside the carry in. Disconnection happens before the old top is lifted, not during.