Worktop installation in Old Kent Road

Yes. Old Kent Road is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE1, SE15. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. 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. We would rather ask than guess. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard bellies at a taped internal angle, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. The lift is measured before the piece is loaded, and once inside the flat the fitting is quick by comparison. That is the shape of the day. New-build handover kitchens here come with 20mm composite that is already chipped at the sink cutout, so replacement is usually about matching an existing sink and tap footprint.

The road is a red route with continuous traffic and no stopping, so every job is worked from the side streets, and new blocks add gated basement parking with limited headroom. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. One visit, done properly. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Sealed before we leave.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. Book the service lift and loading bay with the building manager for the whole fitting window, and have the fob or key for lift override ready. 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. Protection goes down first.