Worktop replacement in St James Street

Yes. St James Street is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E17. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. 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. 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.

Cornice, picture rails and deep skirting survive in converted rooms, so the run stands off the wall and the back edge follows the units rather than the plaster. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Sound carcasses are the one condition. These are small tops with a lot of cut-outs in a confined space, so it is a two-piece job more often than the size alone suggests.

Very tight terraced streets with permit bays on both sides, no crossovers and a nearby industrial estate generating HGV traffic on the through roads. Front doors open straight onto a narrow hall with the stair immediately in front, so pieces come in on edge and pivot at the bottom step. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked. 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 splashbacks & upstands. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A plumber either side of us. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. 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.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. Have a plumber booked to disconnect the sink, tap and waste first thing and reconnect after we have gone, and clear the hallway and stairs completely so we can carry slabs through the house. 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.