Kitchen worktops in Fullwell Cross

Yes. Post-war semis and maisonettes with compact rectangular kitchens, mostly single-run or narrow galley, and a fair number of maisonette kitchens on the first floor. Owners here tend to keep the room shape and upgrade the finish, so we are matching new stone to existing wall units and tiling more often than designing from scratch. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

1930s semi, 1950s semi and post-war maisonette. These are built in dense concrete, so support for a peninsula or an end panel goes in with proper anchors rather than plugs. The carry is the constraint. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them.

Residential roads are fine and most houses have a drive, but the maisonettes above and behind the parade mean a straight-flight staircase carry with a half-landing turn that limits what length we can get up in one piece. The top step is rarely the end of it, because a door swinging out onto the landing has to be held back before a piece can come off the flight. 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. Waste goes out the way the stone came in, so the route stays clear.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning. For anything above ground floor here we measure the stair turn first, a 3m piece will not make the bend, so we plan a joint rather than find out on delivery day.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. A postformed top swallowed the fall. This will not. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. 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.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The alcove was never square and it still is not.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Kitchens in this stock are compact and reasonably square, which makes the fixed lines a larger share of the total than the material is. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The last piece down is the one nearest the door.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Disconnection happens before the old top is lifted, not during.