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. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause.

Victorian villa, Victorian terrace, 1960s block and Postwar infill. Deck access means a long open walkway from the lift or the stair to the front door, and that walk happens with the piece on edge in whatever weather there is. Unit height is the other issue: legs sit on an uneven screed or hard concrete with no give, so the template reads the top of every carcass rather than assuming they share a height. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

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. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. 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.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.