Worktop replacement in West Dulwich

Yes. West Dulwich is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE21. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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 original larder or store cupboard usually survives in a corner, and that alcove is deeper than the units and squarer than the walls around it. 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. Old fixings come out of soft brick and better ones go in. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Packing the carcasses is part of the replacement.

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. 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. Waste goes out the way the stone came in, so the route stays clear. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. 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. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them.

Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Laminate hides what the gables are really doing. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

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 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. The plumber is booked by whoever holds the contract.

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. 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. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. Disconnection happens before the old top is lifted, not during.

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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. The old tops leave by the same route, so the carry out and the skip or van are planned alongside the carry in. The strip-out is planned around it.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Half a day of parking buys half a job.

Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. A corner that was butted can be mitred this time.