Kitchen worktops in Rainham

Yes. Three layers in one place: a small historic village centre where kitchens are constrained and period-sensitive, inter-war and post-war family housing where the job is opening the kitchen into the dining room, and new riverside developments where compact open-plan kitchens get an early upgrade from the developer's laminate. Run lengths in the new-build flats are short, typically 2.4-3m in an L. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

Georgian and older village core, 1930s semi, post-war council house and 2010s-2020s riverside new-build. The floor is often flags or brick laid straight on the ground, so it is solid, uneven and not going to be levelled by chasing into it. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric.

The older village streets are narrow with limited parking, while the new developments have allocated bays, controlled access and sometimes barriers that need a code arranged in advance. Booked delivery windows on a managed estate run to an hour, and a worktop install does not happen inside an hour. 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. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Old top out Tuesday, tenant in on Friday. On the new riverside schemes the units are already fitted and level, so a replacement top is quick, the delay is always getting through the estate access control.

One leg of an L is nearly always the working run and the other little more than a landing space, but both are templated, cut and edged to the same standard. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Whoever owns the carcasses owns that call. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. A larder, a butler sink and a dresser run put more edges and more cut-outs into the job than the floor area suggests. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Overhangs get brackets before anyone leans on them.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone.

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. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Support goes in before stone does, so whatever steel, plywood or extra noggin the shape calls for is fitted while the room is still empty. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it.

Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. The flat earns nothing while it sits empty.