Worktop replacement in Aldgate

Yes. Aldgate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC3N, EC3A. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The waste run is planned, not improvised. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard bellies at a taped internal angle, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. What is under the old top is the real question. Straight swaps onto existing carcases still need the carcase levels checked, because developer units settle and a 3m top will rock on units that were only shimmed once.

The Aldgate gyratory and its approaches are red route with no stopping, so everything goes through a basement service yard with a height barrier or a booked bay at the building entrance. Tower blocks run full contractor control - induction, insurance, permit to work, booked goods lift and a lift protection kit fitted before the first piece moves. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. 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. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop templating. 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 plumber either side of us. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. 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.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Found at template, not on fit day. Book the service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A plumber disconnects before we arrive and reconnects after we leave, and that is worth booking early. Plumber either side of us.