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. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

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. The carry is the constraint. That is the shape of the day.

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. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. 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.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. 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. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.