Worktop replacement in Surrey Quays

Yes. Surrey Quays is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE16. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Block and beam floors with blockwork walls are true enough that the scribes are light and the joins can be pulled tight. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. Units kept, surface changed, one day. These kitchens were built to a budget with 600mm carcasses that have sagged, so the units usually need packing and levelling before a stone top goes anywhere near them.

Estate roads loop and dead-end around the water, so satnav puts you on the wrong side of a dock; most houses have an allocated bay or an integral garage forecourt within carrying distance of the door. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. 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 splashbacks & upstands. 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. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. 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.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. Book the service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. 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.