Kitchen worktops in Erith

Yes. A riverside town with a lot of flats, tower and low-rise estate kitchens are single-run 2.4m boxes, newer riverside apartments have open-plan runs with an island, and the surviving Victorian terraces on the hill have small rear-addition kitchens. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb.

Victorian terrace, 1960s tower block, postwar estate and 2000s-2010s riverside apartment. Kitchens are compact and standardised, which makes the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines a larger share of the total than the stone. Walls in the system-built blocks are concrete or panel and can bow noticeably over the length of a run, so the template picks up the real line and we cut the back edge to follow it rather than trimming on site with a grinder. Nested to the route first and the slab second.

Tower blocks with small passenger lifts and long internal corridors, riverside blocks with a loading bay, and a steep climb up from the riverside that makes any carry harder than it looks on a map. Lift doors close on a timer that takes no account of somebody holding a worktop, so a pair of hands stays on the buttons at each end. 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. Both movements are planned as one.

Worktop replacement and worktop fabrication, in that order. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Specified for wear rather than for the photograph. Lift dimensions in the older towers are the hard limit here, most runs go in as two or three jointed pieces.

Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. A waterfall leg is cut in sequence off its own top. 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. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. A filler strip is evidence, not decoration. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Notice goes out before the crew is booked. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Kitchens in this stock are compact and reasonably square, which makes the fixed lines a larger share of the total than the material is. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. Book-matching is decided at the slab, not at the saw.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Cut-outs are machined with the piece bedded down.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Nothing changes hands until after the template. There is nearly always a boxed soil stack or a service riser in a corner of the run, and it is rarely mentioned at enquiry. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. Undermount cut-outs are polished before anything leaves.

The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Apron mitres are bonded and polished before dispatch.