Kitchen worktops in Pollards Hill

Yes. The estate housing was built on a Radburn layout with pedestrian frontages, and the kitchens are standardised, a 2.4m run plus a short return, with a serving hatch to the living room that owners often close up to gain wall space. Sizes repeat closely across whole blocks. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Two hands and a clear route, or it waits on the van.

1960s and 70s low-rise estate housing, Interwar semi and Postwar terrace. Ceilings sit at about two point three metres and the head of the window is close under them, so a unit over the window has very little wall to hold onto. Dense concrete takes adhesive better than fixings, which actually suits a large bonded panel. Dry lining behind a panel needs a fixing plan of its own.

Cars park in courts and garage blocks set away from the front doors, so almost every job here involves a long carry along footpaths and through pedestrian alleys. Two-man handling with a slab trolley matters more than van proximity. An inward-opening door swinging back against the wall leaves less clear opening than the frame measures, and a storm porch in front of it is tighter again. Splashback panels are lighter than a worktop and far more awkward, because a tall thin piece has to be carried on edge and cannot be tilted to clear a turn. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Closed-up hatches leave a shallow patch of new plasterboard right where the upstand lands, so fix through to the original blockwork rather than into the patch.

A mitred corner is cut and dressed as a matched pair, and if either leg shifts by a millimetre on site the joint opens along its whole length rather than at one end. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Return ends are polished, not left sawn. A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured. 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.

Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Out and in on the same permission. 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.

Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Kitchens in this stock are compact and reasonably square, which makes the fixed lines a larger share of the total than the material is. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Sink and hob seated and sealed before we go.

The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. The longer the walk, the fewer the panels per trip.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The gas enters at the back of the house and the pipe to the hob crosses the room at low level in a boxing along the skirting. The rough band left where tiles took the plaster with them is covered by the upstand rather than made good twice. Old plaster rarely gives you a flat metre.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Door openings and the hall were set to a generous standard, so a long piece turns in from the front without being stood on end to do it. Where the wall carries a service duct the panel stops at the boxing, and that edge is finished as an edge. The wall gets made good first or the gap shows.