Over The Top

Remove all the old tops, and you can get the best-possible measurements and a good assessment of the cabinets. At face value, it’s a valid argument. With the tops gone, it’s going to be more-efficient for your templater to get in, measure, and get on to the next job.
While tearing off the old countertops may make things easier for your templater, what kind of headache and expense will it cause the homeowner? Most people aren’t handy enough to tear out their own tops for the measure and put them back in until the granite tops are installed; they’ll have to hire this out and schedule it.
A plumber may also have to make two extra trips, and that bill alone will be shocking – not to mention two days of mess instead of one. Tearing out the old tops to template is going to cause much more of a disruption to the lives of the homeowner than leaving them in place.
If you want to give your customers a hassle-free process start to finish, you’ll lean in favor of leaving the old tops on place when you measure. Happy customers, after all, mean more referrals and future business.
But, it’s not quite as cut and dried as that. Anyone who is an experienced templater is going to tell you that leaving the old tops on presents challenges and risks. However, if a templater has the proper tools, techniques, and experience, it’s possible to measure with a great deal of accuracy.
The first and most-important thing the templater does in measuring with existing tops on is to ignore everything that has gone before. Never, and I mean never, trust anyone else’s work to be accurate. Never trust an overhang, sink center, or stove-opening width. Instead, use the existing countertops as a giant surface for placing tape. Then, measure back to the face frames of the cabinets and mark the locations on the tape. Use these marks for the basis of your measurements, whatever method you use to make templates.
Every once in a while, you’ll get lucky and find that the person who went before you was really good. In that case, you can simply copy the countertops or make slight adjustments to the overhangs.
This kind of easy-does-it situation, however, is rare. Most of the time, the overhangs are all over the place, the sink center is a little off, and the stove opening is 1/4” different front to back. By marking the location of the cabinet face frames and then offsetting the proper distance, your overhangs can be perfect.
Measuring around an existing sink and faucet can be a challenge using stick or cardboard templates. The easiest way to get accurate sink-center measurements in this situation is to locate the outside of the sink cabinet itself and center from that. This way, you can ignore the current sink and faucet area.
If you’re using cardboard you can cut the material away, allowing your template to lie flat on the existing counters. If you’re using sticks, you can limit the number needed in this area. You can even glue sticks around the outside and front of the sink in order for your template to lay flat and give you accurate measurements.
There are two things you need to watch when using this method. First, double-check that the sink is supposed to be centered in the cabinet. Some custom built cabinets have doors offset from the cabinet-box center. If you need to use the center of the cabinet doors instead of the cabinet opening, make a note of it and get the proper centerline marked on the template.
Also, some people choose to offset a sink so that it lines up with a window, or is pushed to one side to make a particular counter space bigger. If the existing sink is way off center, one of these may be the case. Check with the homeowners on their preferences before proceeding.
Second, having only a little cardboard or a few sticks makes that area of the template weak. Take care when transporting and reassembling the template to make sure everything lines up the way it should. You may even consider gluing extra support to the template when it’s removed from the counter prior to transport.
To get an accurate stove opening, I tape down a couple of 2’ squares on the existing countertop at the correct opening size. When I’m making the templates, I can use the squares as my guide by setting the sticks, cardboard or digital markers (if I’m using a digital-templating system) right on top. The same method can be used if the customers are switching from a freestanding range to a slide-in, but the stove may have to be moved out of the way if the slide-in cutout is less than 30”.
Getting an accurate measurement against the back wall can be difficult with the existing tops still in place. Most of the time, I’m measuring over a laminate with a cove backsplash. The curve at the cove base makes accurately positioning cardboard or sticks against the backsplash almost impossible.
To overcome this, position your sticks or cardboard a set distance away from the wall using a sliding square and tape measure. Doing this against the entire back wall assures that your pieces will fit nicely.
Digital templating can make tops-on measuring much easier. I personally use ETemplate™ and highly recommend it; the coded stickers allow me to get accurate measurements of the back wall, including any scribes. The coded targets allow me to get an easy sink center just by positioning a square at the proper point. By positioning the targets on the marks I made on top of the existing counters, I can offset and get perfect overhangs. I can also position the coded targets on the squares creating the stove opening and use them to get a perfect fit.
Measuring for full-height backsplash or for backsplash to fit under window trim can also be tricky with the tops still on. The most-important thing here is to figure out the thickness of the existing tops; if they’re laminate and an easy place to measure is not readily apparent, you may need to tear off an end cap to see exactly what you have. Sometimes you may see two 3/4” pieces of plywood, sometimes a 3/4” and a 1/2”, etc. Solid surface glue-ups are various thickness combinations as well.
If the counter is built down over the cabinet face, figuring out the thickness of the base piece is crucial. Never assume all the areas of the kitchen are the same either. Check the thickness of each countertop run.
You’ll also need to check carefully to see if the existing counter is sitting right on the cabinet top or has been shimmed up. Missing a shimmed-up counter can leave you short if you are measuring for a specific backsplash height.
Last but not least, use the fact that you’re leaving on the existing tops to measure as a business opportunity. It lets customers know that they can change their countertops with little disruption to their lives.
I also highly recommend putting a line item in the bid offering a set fee for removing the old countertops and disposing of them. Aside from the odd top that is glued down, it’s really not hard to remove laminate or solid-surface counters.
It’s also possible to make a deal with a plumber in your area to unhook the plumbing and reattach after the new countertops are in. You’ll even impress yourself the first time you tear out the old countertops, install the new ones, and get it re-plumbed before the homeowner is even back from a day at the office.
Jason Nottestad, a 12-year stone industry veteran, is co-owner of Wisconsin-based Midwest Template Services.