Worktop replacement in West Heath

Yes. West Heath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE2, DA16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. Both loads want the same few metres of kerb. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Original quarry-tiled floors sit lower than a later screed, so a run crossing that junction needs the units packed to one level. 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. What the last fitter did to the wall shows up on strip-out. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. 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.

A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. 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. Nothing new comes down a hall still full of old top. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. 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. Half a day of parking buys half a job.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop installation comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. 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. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them.

Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A corner that was butted can be mitred this time. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. 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. 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. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Owners phase this work; a void period cannot.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Solid brick with a sand and cement render is firm to work against and reliably out of plumb across the length of a run. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Whatever the old top hid comes to light.

Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. The kitchen sits at the rear with a door to the garden and a window over the sink, so the useful run is broken into two short lengths. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. The units have settled with the floor and get re-levelled.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. 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 route is protected once and then used four times.

An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. These were built in short runs of six or eight houses, so the party walls are solid brick and the rear elevation is a straight line with no outriggers. The junction between the old floor and the extension floor is where a run crossing it needs packing before stone goes on. Tile beds and adhesive come off before the new top goes on.