Kitchen worktops in Bow Common

Yes. Small kitchens dominate, mostly 2m to 2.5m single runs in maisonettes and low-rise flats, with washing machine and boiler both fighting for the same corner. The newer infill houses have a slightly larger L-shape opening onto a dining area. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

post-war council estate, 1980s infill housing and recent gasworks-site apartment block. Access is a question about the plot rather than the house: a narrow frontage between older buildings with nowhere obvious to stand a van. Every socket, switch and any USB point has to be cut out of the stone to the actual measured position, so the template has to be taken with the faceplates off and the back boxes visible. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Wide estate roads and open parking courts make the physical unload easy, but bollards and locked gates between courts mean the shortest route on a map often is not open. The 1980s infill houses have a straight run from front door to kitchen, which is a rare thing round here. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. 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. Joint positions follow from that.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, 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. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Boilers and gas meters are frequently mounted in the run, so cut-outs and clearances need agreeing on site before anything is fabricated.

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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first. 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. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. 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.

These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. 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.