Kitchen worktops in Eastbrookend

Yes. Housing on the eastern edge backing onto the country park, with later infill development mixed into the inter-war stock, so a decent proportion of kitchens are already open-plan from build and only need a surface upgrade. In the older houses the pattern is the usual rear extension to gain a metre and a half and a repositioned sink. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit.

1930s estate house, post-war semi, 1980s-2000s infill and modern estate house. The party walls are new and built to current sound standards, so they are thick, true and take a fixing well. Everything comes up in the lift, so we measure the lift car's internal diagonal before the piece is loaded, because a car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a 3m worktop no matter how you stand it. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

Quieter edge-of-borough streets with off-street parking, cul-de-sacs and no through traffic, so the van sits outside the house without causing problems. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Shared-house tops take a decade of hard use. Newer houses out here have long shallow kitchen-diners, so the practical decision is where to put the single joint on a run that can exceed four metres.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone. A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The old carcasses are rarely level and never were. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Replacement suits occupied stock better than a strip-out. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. A filler strip is evidence, not decoration.

Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The kitchen is usually part of the living space, so three edges are read from a sofa rather than from standing height at the sink. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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. The way out is measured with the way in.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it.