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. 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. 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 run is planned, not improvised. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Edwardian terraces are wider and taller than the Victorian houses next to them, so the kitchen usually takes a full-width rear room rather than a narrow outrigger. 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. Units kept, surface changed, one day. Full-width extensions mean long unsupported spans at the island end, so the substructure normally needs adding to before a 20mm slab is laid.

Quieter roads with driveways and off-street parking, mature front hedges and low walls, and side passages that are usually just wide enough for a trolley if the gate comes off; a few roads run steeply which affects trolley control. Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. 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. The strip-out is planned around it.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop design & quotation, worktop templating and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. 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.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. 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.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Found at template, not on fit day. 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. Plumber either side of us.