Worktop replacement in Welling

Yes. Welling is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The classic arrangement is the original back room with a later extension bolted onto it, so the kitchen is two ages of building in one room. 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. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The stack was boxed in after the kitchen went in.

A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. 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. A stone top coming out whole needs the same crew as one going in. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Housings set out for laminate are checked first. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning.

Whether it comes off the same slab as the run behind it or needs one of its own is settled by laying both against the usable area of the slab, not by adding the metres up. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The shape is measured again, not copied off the old top. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. A postformed top swallowed the fall. This will not. 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. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sequenced around access rather than around the workshop.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Nothing changes hands until after the template. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The rear extension is usually the newest and truest part of the building, so it is the older half of the kitchen that gives the trouble. 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.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. Two loads share the one space here, the old tops waiting to go and the new stone waiting to come in. Half a day of parking buys half a job.

What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. The alcove was never square and it still is not.

Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. The offcut taken out of the middle for a hob is a large usable piece, and it is worth deciding early whether it becomes an upstand or goes in the skip. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Laminate hides what the gables are really doing.