Worktop replacement in West Putney

Yes. West Putney is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW15. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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. Nothing goes out until the route back to the van is clear. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Original joinery is deep and stands proud of the plaster, so the run is plotted to the units rather than to the wall behind them. These are the multi-piece jobs: long runs, a large island and often a range cooker that cannot be moved, so the stone is templated in several pieces and how the vein runs across the joins matters. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The old carcasses are rarely level and never were.

Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. 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. Disconnection happens before the old top is lifted, not during. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The old tops leave in one movement rather than piece by piece.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Between tenancies is the only window there is.

A corbel on show under an overhang is a decision about how the piece looks from a stool, so it gets settled alongside the edge profile rather than left to whoever fits it. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Laminate hides what the gables are really doing. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. A filler strip is evidence, not decoration. Have a fitter or joiner fix and level the island units beforehand, and get the sink, taps, hob and any range on site before templating so we cut to the actual appliances. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Owners phase this work; a void period cannot.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The kitchen is a rear service room with a scullery and a larder off it, and both have usually survived as separate spaces. An overhang past about three hundred millimetres needs steel or brackets let into the units, and that is agreed before the old top comes off. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. A corner that was butted can be mitred this time.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. The stack was boxed in after the kitchen went in.

A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. 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. 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.