Worktop replacement in Millbank

Yes. Millbank is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1P. It is run from the Watford side, covering Hertfordshire & North London. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. 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.

Open-plan living makes the kitchen furniture rather than utility, so the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. What is under the old top is the real question. Closing up a hatch leaves a patched wall that is never flush with the rest - template after the plastering, not before, or the upstand will not sit tight.

Purpose-built blocks with porters, a residents' lift and a separate service lift, and most managing agents restrict works to weekday daytime with no weekend noise. Millbank itself is a red route so vehicles use the block's own forecourt or a booked bay. 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. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. 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 templating and worktop installation. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A plumber either side of us. 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.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. 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.

Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. 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.