Kitchen worktops in Latchmere

Yes. Small Victorian model cottages with kitchens under 8 square metres take a single wall run and a fridge alcove, nothing more. The interwar and postwar blocks have separate kitchens with a fixed sink position under the window and boxed services in one corner. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Half a day of parking buys half a job.

Victorian model-dwelling terrace, Interwar council block, Postwar estate housing and 1990s infill. That rear wall carries the back door and the only window, which leaves very little uninterrupted length for a sink run. 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. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it.

Estate blocks have controlled entry and shared stairs; the older ones have balcony access along the front, which means a long horizontal carry past neighbours' doors. Parking bays on the estate are permit-allocated and enforced. A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. In these blocks the waste position is fixed and often high in the wall, so the sink cutout cannot be moved more than a few centimetres without re-plumbing.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. 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. Behind an island there is no wall to hide against. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. 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.

The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Carcasses stay. Surface changes. That is the whole of it. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. A resident bay and a shared-use bay can sit on the same street under different rules, and it is usually the shared one a visitor permit or a ticket touches. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. The carry happens twice here, so the distance counts twice.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. 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.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces.