Kitchen worktops in Crayford

Yes. Terraces built for the works have small back-addition kitchens under 2.5m with a yard door, the interwar estates above the town have the usual rear kitchen and dining room, and the newer riverside flats have compact open-plan runs with a peninsula. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Victorian industrial workers terrace, 1930s semi, postwar council estate and 2000s riverside flats. Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. Converted warehouses put the kitchen against original brick or blockwork that has never been made flat, so scribes of 15 to 20mm along a run are normal and every piece is templated to the wall exactly as it is rather than to a drawing. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

The town is split by the main road and the river, with a steep hill up from the high street and terraced streets parked nose-to-tail; the riverside blocks have their own gated parking. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. 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. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop fabrication, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. The old works terraces have very low ceilings in the rear addition, check head height over the run before specifying tall upstands or a splashback.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.