Worktop replacement in West Brompton

Yes. West Brompton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW5, SW10. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. What is under the old top is the real question. Two different worlds on one street - old stock needs a joint to get up the stairs, new stock needs a lift booking and a permit before you can even park.

The area is squeezed between the railway cutting and the cemetery wall, so there are few through routes and the side streets are one-way with resident bays right up to the junctions. New blocks require a booked loading bay and a lift booking through building management, usually with protection boards fitted to the lift car before you can use it. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. It sets what the day actually looks like.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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 day, not a project. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The laminate has been covering it up. 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. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A plumber disconnects before we arrive and reconnects after we leave, and that is worth booking early. Units kept, surface changed.