Kitchen worktops in Monks Orchard

Yes. A quiet mixture of post-war semis with standard 3m rear kitchens and newer cul-de-sac housing with open-plan kitchen-diners and small islands. The newer developments come with cabinets already fitted and only the tops changed. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. The kerb decides the start time.

post-war estate semi, 1930s detached, 1970s cul-de-sac housing and modern gated development. Deck access means a long open walkway from the lift or the stair to the front door, and that walk happens with the piece on edge in whatever weather there is. Deck access or a single narrow staircase with tight half-landings means long pieces get walked up on edge, and the landing turn is checked before we commit. The tops go on level even when nothing else is.

Cul-de-sacs and turning heads make loading straightforward, though several of the newer schemes have parking courts behind the houses and bollards that stop a van reaching the front door. Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. 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. Two carries in one day needs the route free for both.

Worktop replacement 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 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. Parking courts on the newer schemes mean a 40-metre carry with a corner, so the pieces get sized for two people rather than four.

It is walked round rather than looked at from one side, so the direction the veining runs along it cannot be hidden against a wall the way it can on a perimeter run. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Waterfall legs are set before the top is bonded down. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Same footprint, different tolerances. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Owners phase this work; a void period cannot. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. No payment is due before the template. A cylinder cupboard or a drying cupboard opens off the kitchen, taking a corner out of the run and giving nothing back. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. One visit, our own installers.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. 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. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.

Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. 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. Some of them overhang on two sides at once, and each side is worked out separately, because the load on an edge people lean against is not the load on an edge people walk past. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The step between rooms is packed out first.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. What the building will take decides how it is fixed.