Worktop replacement in Wormholt

Yes. Wormholt is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W12. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. Booking the bay for the whole day is the honest plan. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Rear access through a garden or a shared path means long pieces can usually come in whole from the back. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. Tile beds and adhesive come off before the new top goes on. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Taking the top off is what exposes the floor.

The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. 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. It sets what the day actually looks like. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop splashbacks & upstands. 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Between tenancies is the only window there is. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. One plot replaced years on, matched or otherwise.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The sink is chosen before the cut list is set. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The old cut-out was hiding the notch you now need. 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. Residents are given written notice before anyone attends, and that notice period rather than the workshop is what governs the earliest sensible start. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units stay, so the flat is usable that evening.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Textured ceiling coatings and old floor tiles in this stock predate 2000, so nothing is scraped, sanded or lifted before anyone knows what it is. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Laminate hides a level that stone will not.

Order is what matters: a slab is templated before it is cut, so an uncut slab is straightforward and one already machined for another kitchen is not. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Shared-house tops take a decade of hard use.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. A passive vent or a ducted extract shaft takes a corner of the kitchen from floor to ceiling and cannot be reduced. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Chipboard carcasses get bracing before stone lands on them.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. 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. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured.