Kitchen worktops in Mawneys

Yes. Older terraced streets north-west of the town centre with narrow rear kitchens in the original back addition, most still a single run of 2.4-3m with the boiler and consumer unit competing for the same wall. Where owners have extended, the kitchen becomes a modest L with a small breakfast bar rather than a full island, the plots are not deep enough for much more. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. The day is built around that window.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace and 1920s semi. The kitchen occupies the ground floor of the addition with a garden door at the far end, so there is a second way in that is narrower than the front door and a great deal shorter. The day is planned backwards from the hall. What the building will take decides how it is fixed.

Terraced fronts with almost no off-street parking, narrow roads, and a rear alley on some streets that is too tight and too uneven to be useful for carrying stone. A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. Both movements are planned as one.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, 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. The fastest upgrade a sound kitchen has. These back additions have a lot of pipework and old vents in the wall, so we survey behind the units at template, a boxed-in soil pipe kills a run length quickly.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. 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. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sequenced around access rather than around the workshop. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The rear wall of the addition carries both the back door and the window, which leaves very little unbroken wall for a run to sit against. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Silicone finishes the job; it does not rescue it.

Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Same footprint, different tolerances.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. The old top leaves by the route the new one arrives on.

How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. One flat out of use at a time.