Worktop replacement in Smithfield

Yes. Smithfield is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC1A, EC1M. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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.

Original brickwork is uneven by ten millimetres or more across a bay, so the back edge is scribed to the actual face rather than to a line. Where brickwork bows enough that a full-depth piece cannot go back tight, the units move forward and the front overhang changes. Sound carcasses are the one condition. Cast-iron columns in these lofts are never quite where the drawing says, so scribe the island around the column rather than trusting a plan dimension.

The market end operates through the night and early morning with lorry movements and cleaning, so an early start clashes with trade rather than helping you, and mid-morning is the better window. Warehouse conversions frequently retain a wide goods lift or a loading door with a hoist beam, which if it is still usable is the easiest way to get a long piece up. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. 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.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A plumber either side of us. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead.

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.

Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. 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 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. Where the owner is not local, the decisions happen remotely, so photographs and a clear itemised drawing carry more weight than a showroom visit ever would. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sound carcasses are the condition.