Worktop replacement in Blackhorse Lane

Yes. Blackhorse Lane is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E17. 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. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The goods lift is generous and the flat entrance often is not, so the tightest point on the route is inside the flat rather than in the building. Converted warehouses put the kitchen against original brick or blockwork that has never been made flat, so scribes of 15 to 20mm along a run are normal and every piece is templated to the wall exactly as it is rather than to a drawing. Units kept, surface changed, one day. The new blocks take a full-length single piece up a decent goods lift, which is worth designing for rather than defaulting to a jointed run.

The main road is a bus and cycle corridor with limited stopping, so deliveries route into the developments' service yards, which need booking with the building manager. Newer blocks have proper goods lifts, but the older industrial units are reached through shared yards with roller doors and no lift at all. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. 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. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. 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. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Height change is checked before we cut. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

An intruding steel column, a brick pier or a downstand breaks a run that would otherwise have been one clean piece. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. Book the goods lift and loading bay for the day, clear a straight route through the open plan, and have a plumber on hand for the island services coming up through the floor. Access in a tenanted flat depends on the tenant, so the template and fitting dates are agreed with whoever actually holds the keys. A plumber disconnects before we arrive and reconnects after we leave, and that is worth booking early. Sound carcasses are the condition.