Kitchen worktops in Gipsy Hill

Yes. The steepest ground in the borough means split-level houses where the kitchen is half a flight below the entrance level, typically an L-shaped room with a run under a rear window and a peninsula facing the garden view. Conversion flats take compact kitchens in former back bedrooms. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Victorian villa, Victorian terrace, 1960s block and Postwar infill. These are built in dense concrete, so support for a peninsula or an end panel goes in with proper anchors rather than plugs. Concrete and dense block walls in ex-council stock cannot be chased back or packed out to suit, so the template takes the wall exactly as it is and the stone carries the scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Roads climb sharply with tight bends and limited turning space, so a long van has to plan the route in and out. Front approaches are frequently down steps to a lower entrance, and the combination of gradient and steps rules out trolleys. Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A plumber either side of us. Split-level layouts mean the kitchen floor and the adjoining room floor are different heights, so set the datum in the kitchen itself and never carry a level through from the hall.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. One datum for the whole room. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A plumber disconnects before we arrive and reconnects after we leave, and that is worth booking early. Units kept, surface changed. 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.