Worktop replacement in Whitechapel

Yes. Whitechapel is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Entry-phone access, a booked lift and a parking bay near the entrance all have to be arranged before a date is confirmed. Plaster bonded straight onto concrete comes away with the bottom course of tiles, leaving a band behind the upstand. Sound carcasses are the one condition. It is two different trades on one postcode: hand-carried small pieces into old estate kitchens, and booked service lifts and island slabs in the new towers.

The main road is a red route with a street market along it for most of the week, so unloading is via side turnings and a longer carry. New residential towers require a booked loading bay slot, a lift protection booking with concierge, and often a delivery window outside peak hours. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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. The strip-out is planned around it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A day, not a project.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. 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.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The laminate has been covering it up. Sort a parking bay or permit near the entrance, confirm the lift is in service and get us the door codes, and tell us about any asbestos survey on the flat before we start stripping out. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sound carcasses are the condition.