Kitchen worktops in Slade Green

Yes. Flat marshland ground with railway-era terraces and postwar estate housing; kitchens are narrow rear rooms of about 2m by 3m with a back door, and most jobs are like-for-like replacements rather than extensions. 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. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Edwardian railway workers terrace, postwar council estate, 1960s-70s terrace and 2000s infill. Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. The other constraint is the hall: a piece has to come through the front door, round the newel at the foot of the stairs and through a doorway into the back kitchen, so we size the pieces to the tightest turn on that route before we nest anything, which sometimes means splitting a run that would otherwise have gone in whole. The bench proves it before the van moves.

Level throughout with wide estate roads and generally free parking, but the area is hemmed in by the railway and the marshes so there are few routes in and satnav often sends vans the long way round. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Worktop replacement, worktop fabrication and worktop templating, 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. A day, not a project. Easy parking, but these houses sit on soft ground and the floors move, always recheck the units are level before templating.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. 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. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Units kept, surface changed. 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.