Kitchen worktops in Ham

Yes. The Span and Wates estates give a very particular job - modular 1950s and 1960s houses with a compact kitchen on a fixed grid, often opened to the dining area with a 2.7m run and a slim peninsula, and the original units replaced within the same footprint; the Georgian houses on the common are a different scale entirely with large rear kitchens. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Georgian house around the common, 1950s and 1960s Span estate, postwar Wates housing and modern infill. Base units from the seventies and eighties are often only 500mm deep, so a 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors want checking against it. Runs are short, joins are few and the biggest single question is whether we can go in through the back, a rear door straight from the garden into the kitchen usually lets us fit long pieces whole, whereas a mid-terrace with no side gate means everything comes through the front and may need splitting. That is what the itemised lines are for.

Estate roads with communal parking courts set back from the houses so the carry is 20 to 30 metres, and pedestrian-only paths between blocks that a trolley handles but a van cannot follow. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. An access-driven join is priced like any other join, and people are always surprised to see one on a dead straight run. Nothing about it gets estimated after the fact.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop design & quotation, 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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. The estate houses have thin partition walls and lightweight carcasses, so weight matters - 20mm quartz or porcelain rather than 30mm granite.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. 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.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. 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.