Kitchen worktops in Ardleigh Green

Yes. Larger inter-war houses on generous plots where full-width rear extensions are the norm, producing broad kitchen-family rooms with an island of 2.5-3m and bifolds across the back. Because the extensions are wide rather than deep, the island tends to sit parallel to a long back run with the hob on the island. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. Handling counts are decided here, not on the pavement.

1930s semi, 1930s detached and post-war detached. A side door into a lobby with a cloakroom off it is the standard arrangement, so there is a second way in that misses the hall altogether. Most of these have a side passage and a back door, so a full-length piece can usually reach the kitchen without being cut down, and the piece sizing is driven by the slab rather than the route. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out.

Wide roads and deep drives, with most plots wide enough to get a slab down the side of the house to the rear extension rather than through the hallway. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved.

Worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional. Hob-in-island is the standard here and the extraction downdraught eats into the cabinet, so we confirm the cut-out position against the actual downdraught unit, not the hob spec sheet.

A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Join count follows the shape, not the metreage. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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. Notice periods decide the date more often than the workshop. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Rear extensions on these sit on shallow foundations, and the crack at the junction with the original wall tells you which way it has moved. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. Drainer grooves are machined flat, on a bed, never on site.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. The window over the sink sits at about worktop height, so the run is set out around the sill and the reveal rather than under them. Pieces are cut, mitred, machined and dry-assembled on the bench before anything is loaded onto a van. The offcut is planned before the main piece is cut.