Kitchen worktops in Little Heath

Yes. Inter-war semis on the Redbridge side of the Chadwell Heath boundary, with the standard back-of-house kitchen and larder that has usually been opened up to the dining room. Budgets tend to be sensible rather than showy, so the common job is a good-quality quartz top on existing or mid-range new units with matching upstands rather than a full slab splashback. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

1930s semi, inter-war terrace and post-war infill. There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. 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. Where the plaster undulates, the shorter piece wins.

Quiet residential streets, most with a dropped kerb and off-street space, but the roads feeding onto the A12 and Whalebone Lane get busy and are no place to leave a van blocking traffic. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. A tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A plumber either side of us. Upstands rather than full splashbacks are the norm here, and the walls behind the old tiling are rarely flat, so we allow for scribing the upstand to the wall line.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A galley is levelled as one plane, both sides together. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Whoever owns the carcasses owns that call. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. Internal walls are hollow clay block or stud rather than solid brick, so two points a metre apart on the same wall want two different fixings. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Old plaster gets scribed to, never fought with.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. 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. The ragged band left when old tiles and laminate come off together is what usually decides upstand over full height. The tile bed comes off before anything is measured.