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. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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.

1930s semi, postwar council-built housing, 1960s terrace and modern flats. An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. 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. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

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. Joint positions follow from that.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. 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 galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Corners get their own pieces. 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 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 same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Same slab run as the tops. 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.