Kitchen worktops in Knight's Hill

Yes. A mix of interwar semis with rear kitchens that get modest extensions and postwar estate flats with fixed compact layouts, so the same street can produce a 4m island kitchen and a 2.2m galley. Landlord and housing-association refits with standard carcasses make up a steady share of the work. 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. That is why they are crated the way they are.

Interwar semi, Postwar estate housing, Victorian terrace and 1970s low-rise flat. The rear extension is frequently original rather than added, which means it is solidly built and just as far out of square as the rest of the house. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. The house sets the order of work.

Estate sections have parking courts set back from the entrances and stair-only access in the low-rise blocks, while the semis have driveways and easy approaches. Hilly ground means some parking bays sit well below the front doors they serve. Sintered stone at 12mm changes what a staircase can take, because the same run arrives at roughly half the weight of the granite equivalent. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing. On housing-association refits the carcasses are supplied to a fixed spec, so the top has to work to their unit heights and cutout positions rather than to what suits the stone.

Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. The sill caps the upstand before anything else does. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside 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. The tops and the wall are rarely one approval. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. 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. 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. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Original quarry tile is often still down under two or three later floor coverings, which is why the finished floor height is rarely what anyone expects. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. A thicker top changes what clears the top drawer.