Kitchen worktops in Orpington

Yes. A broad mix, but the recurring one is the Orpington bungalow: a wide, shallow kitchen with worktop on three sides, low windows and a wall-mounted boiler, where the owner wants an undermount sink and a drainer grooved into the stone. The inter-war semis nearby run to standard rear-extension kitchen-diners. 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. 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. Van to door is the distance that matters.

1930s semi, post-war detached, bungalow and town-centre flats. The floor is a solid slab with a screed over it, which is stable underfoot and rarely flat across a long run. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. The units have settled with the floor and get re-levelled.

Generally easy. Off-street parking on most of the residential roads, and bungalows mean no stairs at all, which is the single biggest time saver on a stone fit. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. A laminate run comes out easier than stone goes in.

Worktop replacement, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Chosen against the doors that are staying. Bungalow kitchens here nearly always want a drainer grooved rather than a separate rack, and that has to be cut in the workshop with the sink, not on site.

With three walls in play the chance of one of them being out of square is high, and the template has to carry all three angles. 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 last piece in has the least tolerance left. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Material is quoted supply only from £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are given their own lines rather than one combined figure.

The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Disposal is named, not assumed. Tell us what the building is when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are planned in rather than discovered.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Suspended floors at the front meet a solid slab in the extension somewhere in the middle, and the units sit across the change. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The last piece down is the one nearest the door.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The rear extension is usually the newest and truest part of the building, so it is the older half of the kitchen that gives the trouble. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Silicone finishes the job; it does not rescue it.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.