Kitchen worktops in South Acton

Yes. Predominantly new-build apartment kitchens in the regeneration blocks: straight runs of 2.4m to 3.2m, integrated appliances throughout, and leaseholders upgrading the developer-fitted tops. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. 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. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools.

1960s-1970s estate block, phased regeneration new-build and Victorian terrace fringe. The kitchen door is a fire door onto a lobby that is also the escape route, so nothing can be stood in that lobby while the work goes on. 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. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick.

A large estate under phased construction, so hoardings, site traffic and changing road layouts. Blocks have goods lifts, but access is arranged through the managing agent rather than the resident. Goods lifts and passenger lifts fail differently: one has a rated load that matters, the other has a door aperture that matters more. 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. What can be got into the room decides the height above the worktop.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. 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. The road layout changes as the phases move, so confirm the current access route in the week of the fit rather than relying on the survey visit.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Out and in on the same permission. 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 Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Corners get their own pieces.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The first kitchen was fitted by the authority to a standard layout, so the waste, the gas point and the sockets are all still where that layout put them. Dense concrete takes adhesive better than fixings, which actually suits a large bonded panel. What the plaster is stuck to matters more than its colour.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. A number of these blocks have had the gas taken out altogether, which turns a change of hob into an electrical question rather than a plumbing one. The rough band left where tiles took the plaster with them is covered by the upstand rather than made good twice. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. The run decides where that joint falls.