Worktop replacement in Ravensbury

Yes. Ravensbury is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR4, SM4. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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.

Deck access means a long open walkway from the lift or the stair to the front door, and that walk happens with the piece on edge in whatever weather there is. 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. What is under the old top is the real question. Maisonette kitchens usually back onto a shared party wall with a soil stack boxed in, and that boxing eats 150mm of the run that the plan does not show.

The Wandle and its parkland cut the area into pockets, so the drivable route to a front door is often not the obvious one on a map. Newer blocks have proper lobbies and lifts; the older maisonettes have external stair access only. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop templating. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A plumber either side of us. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. 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.

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. 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.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. 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. 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. Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Sound carcasses are the condition.