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. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

1930s semi, post-war detached, bungalow and town-centre flats. Bungalow kitchens are frequently extended into the rear or opened into the roof space, so the room is part original and part new build. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. What is under the old top is the real question.

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. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop replacement, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, 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 carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. 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.

The advantage of a U is that every join can be put over a gable in a corner, so nothing lands in the middle of a clear length. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Units kept, surface changed. 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.