Kitchen worktops in Roundshaw

Yes. Built on the old Croydon Airport land and largely rebuilt since, so the housing is modern-estate standard: compact kitchens of around 2.7m in an open-plan or semi-open layout, with a washing machine in the run because there is no utility. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes.

1970s estate housing, 1990s-2000s rebuilt estate housing, low-rise flats and housing association 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. The rear kitchen wall in ex-council flats and maisonettes is commonly dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which means mechanical fixings are hard work and the splashback is held on adhesive rather than screwed. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it.

Parking courts and pedestrian decks rather than roadside frontage, controlled bollards on some routes, and communal entrances to the flatted blocks with an intercom. A height barrier on the car park entrance rules out a tail-lift van outright, and the stone then transfers to a trolley at the barrier itself. 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 tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. 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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. With the washing machine in the worktop run the cut-outs sit close together, so the piece needs a support rail across the appliance gap or it will flex when the machine spins.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The island top is the one that may want its own slab. 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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. A straight swap is the exception in an older room. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Where the provider has set the specification the material choice was made once for a great many kitchens, and the useful work is meeting it exactly rather than proposing something else on the day. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Notice periods decide the date more often than the workshop. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. 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. That suits a full-height piece, because a large flat panel bonded across its back is more stable on concrete than a run of small tiles ever was. Where the plaster undulates, the shorter piece wins.

A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. Panels are carried on edge from the tail lift to the wall.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The wall has not moved, and neither has the problem.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. 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. The rough band left where tiles took the plaster with them is covered by the upstand rather than made good twice. The tile bed comes off before anything is measured.