Worktop replacement in Wimbledon Chase

Yes. Wimbledon Chase is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW20, SW19. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Merton. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Bungalow kitchens are frequently extended into the rear or opened into the roof space, so the room is part original and part new build. 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. A replacement is measured against the walls as they are now. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The alcove was never square and it still is not.

A Victorian hall arch sits lower than the ceiling either side of it, and it is the point a piece carried on edge meets first. 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 route is protected once and then used four times. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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 we do most here, behind worktop installation. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. 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. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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.

Three runs is three scribes and three separate lifts, so a U takes longer on site than its metreage suggests even on a day when nothing goes wrong. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The sink is chosen before the cut list is set. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. The gap between tenancies is the whole window.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The carry happens twice here, so the distance counts twice.

Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. It usually explains the odd filler piece or strip of beading in the existing run that nobody could account for. The old cut-out was hiding the notch you now need.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Three runs means two internal corners, and each corner is a decision about mitre or butt joint before anything is nested. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Joins move onto the gables this time round.