Kitchen worktops in Peckham

Yes. The Bellenden-side Victorian terraces are extension country - kitchen moved into a rear infill with a 3m run against the flank and a small island or peninsula - while the estate flats and warehouse-style conversions to the north stay galley-shaped with a single run and a tall bank. Estate roads inside a controlled zone are sometimes managed privately rather than by the council, which changes who has to be asked. 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 clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

Georgian terrace pockets, Victorian bay-front terrace, 1960s and 1970s estate and 2010s conversion of light industrial. Electrics went in at conversion, some in surface trunking and some chased into lath and plaster, so no cable route in these rooms is safe to assume. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Old floors get packed, not argued with.

Tight terraced streets with permit bays, a lot of skips and builders' vans competing for kerb, and rear access rarely usable because gardens back onto other gardens rather than a lane. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.

Worktop installation, in that order. A licensed shared house has fire-door and escape-route rules that decide how and when stone can be carried through the common parts. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. Half these jobs land mid-build with the extension still drying out, so template late and check the plaster is on before you cut.

A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The room cleared before the crew arrives. 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.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Support first, stone second.