Kitchen worktops in Chase Cross

Yes. Post-war housing at the top of Collier Row with smaller, tighter kitchens than the inter-war stock down the hill, often a single run plus a short return and a serving hatch that the client wants closed up. Straight replacement is the usual brief, with a stone-topped breakfast bar formed where the hatch wall comes out. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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 have to go somewhere as well.

1950s semi, 1960s terrace, post-war maisonette and 1980s infill. A boiler in a cupboard on the kitchen wall is normal in this stock, and its position is fixed by its flue. Post-war terraces have small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run, so runs are short and joins are rare, but there are usually two corners and a window cill to work around in a couple of metres. A new top on a settled run needs the run corrected first.

Open post-war layouts with verges, parking courts and hardstanding, so no restrictions to worry about, though the parking courts sit behind the houses and the front carry can be longer than it looks. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear. Closing up an old serving hatch changes the wall line, so we template after the plastering is done rather than working to the builder's intended dimension.

The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Stone wants gables where laminate needed none. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A forced back edge cracks weeks later. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

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. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The whole slot, or the stone waits. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Ceiling heights dropped after the war, so there is less wall between the worktop and the wall units than in anything older. The units are often 1970s or 80s and only around 500mm deep, so a standard 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors and drawer fronts need checking against it. The fabric gets checked while it is open.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. Chipboard carcasses under the sink swollen from a slow leak will not take stone and get replaced before fit day. Old fixings come out of soft brick and better ones go in.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The strip-out is the part worth planning.