Kitchen worktops in Benhilton

Yes. Older stock on the hill north of the town centre with narrow rear kitchens in back additions, typically 2.6m of run with a boiler cupboard eating one corner. Some of the larger villas have been opened up into full kitchen-diners with a peninsula. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. 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 old tops leave in one movement rather than piece by piece.

Victorian terrace, Victorian villa, inter-war semi and post-war flats. The chimney breast has almost always been taken out of the kitchen with the stack left standing above it, so that bay of wall is newer plasterwork on a different plane. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The wall behind the old top has not been seen in years.

Streets climb steeply from the town centre with parking on both sides and no off-street space on the terraces, so the carry is up a hill and then in through the front door. The front door is often the cheapest hundred millimetres on the route, because a door lifted off its hinges gives back the width its own thickness was taking. Splashback panels are lighter than a worktop and far more awkward, because a tall thin piece has to be carried on edge and cannot be tilted to clear a turn. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day.

Worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template. Boiler cupboards in the corner of these back additions are usually staying put, so we template around them and put the joint at the cupboard return.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A corner that was butted can be mitred this time. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. Each obstruction is another joint, and it is priced as one. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Whoever specifies it signs the drawing. 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 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. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. 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. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. The panel takes its height off the steel.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Ceilings are high in these, so wall unit heights and splashback heights are open choices rather than things the room has already decided. What the old top has been hiding is usually a floor that settled towards the back and units that were never fixed back to the wall. Old tops were scribed to a wall that has moved since.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. 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. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. An inward-opening door swinging back against the wall leaves less clear opening than the frame measures, and a storm porch in front of it is tighter again. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. The panel is sized to the turn, not to the wall alone.