Kitchen worktops in Heathfield

Yes. Postwar and interwar family housing with practical, compact kitchens - most keep the original footprint of roughly 2.2m by 3.2m, and the work is a refit within it with a 3m run, a return by the back door and a full splashback behind the hob. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort.

1930s semi, postwar council-built housing, 1960s terrace and modern flats. The back door frequently opens straight into the kitchen, which is the best carry route in the house and the one people forget to mention. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. Dry lining behind a panel needs a fixing plan of its own.

Bounded by the A316 and the Duke of Northumberland's River, so approach roads are limited and the estate layout is loops and cul-de-sacs; parking is on-street or on short driveways with a turning head that fits a van. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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. The panel is sized to the turn, not to the wall alone.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Nothing else in the room has to change. These kitchens have a back door mid-run, so the top ends at a doorway and the end grain has to be finished properly instead of hidden by a unit.

A dishwasher door on one side and an oven door on the other cannot both stand open in a narrow aisle, so which appliance goes where matters more in this shape than in any other. 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. Return ends are polished, not left sawn. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The alcove was never square and it still is not. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Low maintenance is the honest choice for a let. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. These kitchens have usually been retiled twice and knocked through once, and both of those leave marks the worktop has to deal with. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. The extractor position is measured before the panel is drawn.

Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Original quarry-tiled floors sit lower than a later screed, so a run crossing that junction needs the units packed to one level. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. Old plaster rarely gives you a flat metre.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. It travels on edge, so the clearance is checked on edge.