Kitchen worktops in Cowley

Yes. Semis where the kitchen has been knocked into the dining room to make one 5m L with a peninsula facing the garden, and the utility pushed out into what used to be the outhouse or lean-to. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

1930s semi, postwar house, canalside cottage and recent infill. There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Cowley Road and the High Street carry a lot of traffic, but the residential streets have dropped kerbs and drives. Canal bridges limit larger vehicles on the western side. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating, 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. One visit, done properly. The old outhouse conversion nearly always sits at a different floor level, so the utility top and the kitchen top will not line through unless you plan for it.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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 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. 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.