Kitchen worktops in Alibon

Yes. Eastern Becontree housing towards Dagenham, similar house types but with more maisonettes and low-rise flats mixed in, so a share of the work is first-floor kitchens with a fixed narrow footprint. In the houses, the pattern is the usual scullery-plus-larder conversion into a single L, often with the back door repositioned during the works. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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. The carry happens twice here, so the distance counts twice.

1930s LCC cottage estate house, ex-council semi and post-war maisonette. These are built in dense concrete, so support for a peninsula or an end panel goes in with proper anchors rather than plugs. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. The old top hid it; the new one will not.

Estate roads with easy parking, but maisonette blocks mean an external stair or shared entrance and a first-floor carry with a turn at the top. The top step is rarely the end of it, because a door swinging out onto the landing has to be held back before a piece can come off the flight. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. Maisonette stairs here are external and often steep, so we cut to a length two people can carry safely up them rather than the longest possible piece.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Old runs are rarely square, and stone will not forgive it. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. A void between tenancies has no spare days in it. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. 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. Booking the bay for the whole day is the honest plan.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Where the kitchen is on the entrance level, the piece comes off the deck and turns straight in without going up or down at all. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. Same units, straighter line, better surface.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Where the seam went before is not where it goes now.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Kitchens in this stock are compact and reasonably square, which makes the fixed lines a larger share of the total than the material is. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Cutting the old top out saves the units below it.