Kitchen worktops in Scrattons Farm

Yes. A small inter-war and post-war estate east of Thames View with modest semis and terraces, where the kitchen sits at the rear with a back lobby and pantry that most owners have absorbed into the room. Layouts end up as a squared L with the fridge in the old pantry recess and about 3m of usable run. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait.

1930s estate house, post-war semi and post-war terrace. These were built on a solid ground floor slab, so nothing bounces and nothing can be packed down, only up. Access is generally through the front door and a short straight hall into the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than a Victorian terrace, though rear access through a back garden or shared path is often the better route if it exists. The age of the house sets the pace of it.

Quiet cul-de-sac layouts with front gardens and hardstanding on many houses, and little through traffic, so the van can generally sit outside the property. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. The route is protected once and then used four times.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Same day, because the void is the whole budget. The old pantry recess is rarely a clean rectangle, so if a full-height unit is going in there we template the recess rather than the room.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Packing the carcasses is part of the replacement. Material is quoted supply only from £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are given their own lines rather than one combined figure.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Void periods do not extend to suit a lead time. Tell us what the building is when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are planned in rather than discovered.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Units are often only 500mm deep, so a standard 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors need checking against it. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. A stone top coming out whole needs the same crew as one going in.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Timing the two carries is most of the planning.

Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Repairable in place beats replaced whole.