Kitchen worktops in Clapham Park

Yes. Estate flats make up most of the stock with kitchens of a fixed size and services grouped at one wall, so refits are single runs with a short return and matching upstands. Regeneration blocks arriving alongside them have modern kitchens where a stone upgrade is a straightforward carcass-fit. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait.

Interwar estate block, Postwar estate housing, Large Victorian villa and 2020s regeneration block. The chimney breast in the kitchen served a back boiler behind the living room fire, so the flue is a shared one and the breast is deeper than a fireplace would need. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. Nothing goes back on carcasses the building has pulled out of square.

The estate roads have controlled parking bays and the blocks use entryphone systems, with lifts in the taller blocks and stair-only access in the low-rise. New regeneration blocks have proper service entrances but require induction and booked lift time. Whether the stone can stand on end in the car is the first question, because a lift that takes 2.1m upright takes nothing like that lying flat. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. It decides whether the old top leaves whole.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there. Old estate kitchens often still have asbestos-era boxing around ducts, so nothing gets cut or drilled into that boxing without the landlord's confirmation of what it is.

The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. 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. Set it proud on a subframe and the gap becomes deliberate. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Method statements, insurance certificates and named operatives are wanted before a crew is cleared to attend, all of which is routine when it is asked for a week out. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Keys confirmed the week before, not the morning of. 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.

Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Windows sit in deep concrete reveals with a cast sill, and that reveal is usually the least square thing in the room. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The tiles above will want attention once the old top goes.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Meters were moved out to a box on the flank wall on a later programme, and the cupboard they came out of is usually still standing in the corner. Plaster bonded straight onto concrete comes away with the bottom course of tiles, leaving a band behind the upstand. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. 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. Where the wall cannot be made good, setting the stone deliberately proud on a subframe with a shadow gap reads as a detail rather than a bad fit. An upstand rides what a panel exposes.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Where the external walls have been overboarded to insulate them the room is fifty millimetres smaller than the drawing and the board sounds hollow throughout. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. A sound carcass takes stone; a soft one gets replaced first.