Worktop replacement in West Ealing

Yes. West Ealing is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W13. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. 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. Two loads, one space, one day. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Cornice runs round the head of the wall, so the wall units stop under it and the splashback band is trapped between two things that are not going to move. 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. A replacement is measured against the walls as they are now. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The alcove was never square and it still is not.

Every flight adds a set of handling movements, and handling is where stone gets damaged, so a fourth-floor walk-up is priced by the flight rather than by the metre. 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. Timing the two carries is most of the planning. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. 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. The old tops have to go somewhere as well.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. 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. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them.

Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. 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. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. The plumber is booked by whoever holds the contract.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Ceilings are generous and the rooms are narrow, so the runs are long, the aisle is tight and there is nowhere to stand a slab on edge. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The wall behind the old top is rarely the wall on the drawing.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. 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. Sintered stone at 12mm changes what a staircase can take, because the same run arrives at roughly half the weight of the granite equivalent. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. The room is cleared for the way out as much as the way in.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. The old tops leave by the same route, so the carry out and the skip or van are planned alongside the carry in. Old material is stacked outside rather than left along the route.