Kitchen worktops in Charlton

Yes. Steep streets of Victorian and Edwardian terraces with rear-addition kitchens, plus interwar semis higher up the hill where the kitchen is a small square room off the hall that owners usually open into the dining room. Runs are typically 2.4m to 3m in an L, islands only where a rear extension has gone in. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The day is built around that window.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian bay-fronted terrace, 1930s semi and postwar council maisonette. These were built with a scullery that has since been swallowed by an extension, leaving a change of floor level roughly where the run crosses. The template plots the bow along the back of the run, which is why a tape reading taken beforehand never matches. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

The roads climb hard from the riverside up to the village and parking on the terraced streets is nose-to-tail; the interwar semis higher up usually have a drive, which changes the job completely. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Some of the steepest carries in the borough are here, if the van can't get above the house, budget for pushing a slab up a 1-in-8 pavement.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. Real angles, not plan angles. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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 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 replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed. 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.