Kitchen worktops in Aldgate

Yes. Newer towers on the eastern edge give standard developer kitchens - a 3-3.4m run against the riser plus an island of about 2m, with an induction hob and a recirculating extract that fixes the hob position. Many of these are being upgraded from original laminate or composite to quartz within a few years of completion, so the job is a straight swap onto existing carcases. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

modern residential tower, office to residential conversion, 1980s-90s apartment block and mixed-use development over retail. Boxed soil stacks and ventilation ducts run behind the units, and the boxing depth changes between floor level and worktop height. New-build rooms are genuinely square, but they are dot-and-dab plasterboard, and the taped internal angle is where it goes wrong - the board bellies at the corner and the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

The Aldgate gyratory and its approaches are red route with no stopping, so everything goes through a basement service yard with a height barrier or a booked bay at the building entrance. Tower blocks run full contractor control - induction, insurance, permit to work, booked goods lift and a lift protection kit fitted before the first piece moves. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Straight swaps onto existing carcases still need the carcase levels checked, because developer units settle and a 3m top will rock on units that were only shimmed once.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.