Kitchen worktops in Liverpool Street

Yes. Residential units are mostly upper-floor conversions in narrow-fronted commercial buildings, so kitchens are long and thin - a 3m single run along one wall with no facing return, and appliances stacked rather than spread. Ceiling heights are generous but the plan is tight, which is why full-height stone behind the run is more common here than wall cupboards. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Victorian commercial building converted to flats, modern apartment above retail, narrow court and alley building and mixed-use scheme near the station. Permitted works hours are commonly weekdays with a late start and an early finish, so a one-day fit is planned around the porter and the lift. Boxing depth is taken at worktop height at several points, because measuring it low down is why a top will not sit back. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Station-side streets carry very heavy pedestrian flow all day and several approach lanes are pedestrianised or too narrow for a Luton, so the van stops further out than you would like. Entrances are frequently a single door in a narrow court with a straight steep stair and no lift, which caps piece length hard at what two people can pivot on a landing. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. That is part of what the visit is for.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Long thin kitchens in narrow buildings mean the run is easy and the stair is not - build the joints around the landing pivot, not the wall length.

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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Height change is checked before we cut. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Appliances on site, not on order. 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.