Kitchen worktops in Seething Wells

Yes. Converted waterworks and filter-house apartments with unusual plans - tall windows, exposed brick and steel, and kitchens set as an island-plus-run in a wide open space, alongside plain Victorian terraces along the Portsmouth Road with small rear kitchens. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Victorian terrace, Victorian waterworks conversion and 1990s riverside flats. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

The river frontage limits approach to one road, and the converted works have gated courtyards, shared stairs and only a handful of visitor bays, so unloading is often 30 to 40 metres from the flat door. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. 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 strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One visit, done properly. Conversion flats have tall ceilings but narrow original door openings, so the width of a slab on the trolley is what catches you out, not the height.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. One datum for the whole room. A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how far the stone has to be relieved changes which part of the slab the piece is cut from. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.