Kitchen worktops in Gascoigne

Yes. A large regeneration area where older system-built blocks are being replaced by new flats and maisonettes, so the work splits between compact original flat kitchens getting a hard-wearing replacement top and newer units where owners upgrade the developer's finish. Kitchens are small and linear, one wall, sometimes with a short return, and no island anywhere. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

1960s tower block, 1960s low-rise flat and 2010s-2020s regeneration housing. Entry-phone access, a booked lift and a parking bay near the entrance all have to be arranged before a date is confirmed. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Flats above ground level throughout, so it is lifts, communal stairs, narrow landings and fire doors, with delivery times often restricted by the managing agent. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. 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. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Fire doors and 90-degree landings are the real limit on flat jobs here, so lengths are cut to what will physically turn on the landing.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. 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. 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. 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.