Kitchen worktops in Elephant and Castle

Yes. Split between new regeneration flats with compact open-plan kitchens along one wall and a 1.8m breakfast peninsula, and ageing 1960s and 1970s blocks with tiny closed kitchens where the whole job is a 2m replacement top plus upstands. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. That is why they are crated the way they are.

1960s slab block, 1970s council estate, 2010s regeneration apartment and Georgian terrace pockets. The skim over dense block is thin and dishes out round a hole, so a fixing wants a hammer drill and the dust travels through the flat. The carry is the constraint. The age of the house sets the pace of it.

Major junction and gyratory with red routes on the approaches, so vans get pushed onto side streets; new blocks have booked lifts, old blocks have a single lift per core serving a lot of flats. The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. One damaged panel, one twin already on the shelf. Old block kitchens are so tight that a 3m slab cannot be turned in the hall - measure the doorway swing before promising a single piece.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. 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 boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

Where the provider has set the specification the material choice was made once for a great many kitchens, and the useful work is meeting it exactly rather than proposing something else on the day. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. A second visit needs a second permission. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one 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.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The handrail is fixed to the wall side of the flight, so the clear width at hand height is a hundred millimetres less than the stair measures at the tread. Deck access or a single narrow staircase with tight half-landings means long pieces get walked up on edge, and the landing turn is checked before we commit. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. The kitchen door is a fire door onto a lobby that is also the escape route, so nothing can be stood in that lobby while the work goes on. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. The slow parts are slow for a reason.