Kitchen worktops in Golborne

Yes. Two very different jobs sit within a few hundred metres of each other: modest Victorian terraces with a rear kitchen of about 2.4m and a side return not yet built out, and the listed tower flats which have narrow galley kitchens of roughly 2.2-2.6m with fixed service ducts you cannot move. In the tower the units are shallow and the original layout is the layout, so replacement worktops are cut to the existing footprint. Where an event closes the road entirely, the van cannot be moved once it is in, which is a different problem from not being able to park at all. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

Victorian terrace, Grade II* listed 1970s tower, postwar walk-up flats and shop with flat over. Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Golborne Road has market trading days that close kerbside access, so deliveries are better before the stalls go up. The tower is served by a single lift core off a ground-floor lobby with a long approach walk, and residential flats sit on the far side of an access bridge from the lift landing, which means everything is hand-carried the last stretch. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. Splashback panels are lighter than a worktop and far more awkward, because a tall thin piece has to be carried on edge and cannot be tilted to clear a turn. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Appliances on site, not on order. In a listed block, keep the alteration to like-for-like surface work - move a duct or a wall and the job stops while consent is chased.

A galley run down a side-return extension usually measures longer than a slab will give in one length, so a join is designed in from the start rather than discovered. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. 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. 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.

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. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.