Kitchen worktops in Putney

Yes. Mansion flats and purpose-built blocks near the river hold the bulk of the work, with kitchens confined to their original footprint — a run of 2.6m to 3.2m and a return, sometimes opened to the reception with a peninsula in the opening. Terraced houses on the streets off the Upper Richmond Road take a conventional rear extension. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian mansion flat, 1930s purpose-built flat and Riverside apartment. The lift is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a turn at every half-landing. Mansion-block kitchens usually have a serviced riser or boxed pipework somewhere in the run, and the boxing is rarely the same depth from one end to the other, so the template takes the depth at worktop height at several points rather than one reading. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

The High Street is a red route with a bus gate and no stopping, and the surrounding streets are permit-controlled. Mansion blocks frequently have a small original lift that will not take a slab, meaning a stair carry up two or three flights with a half-landing turn each time. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. That is part of what the visit is for.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Assume the lift is unusable in the older blocks and plan piece sizes around the stair turn — a 2.4m maximum is a safer starting point than the room dimensions suggest.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. 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 boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. 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.

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. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Plumber either side of us. 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.