Kitchen worktops in South Bermondsey

Yes. Predominantly estate flats with small separate kitchens - an L of 2.2m and 1.5m is typical, often with a boxed-in soil stack in the corner and a boiler over the run, so the work is replacing tired laminate on existing carcasses rather than designing from scratch. On an event day the controls are wider, tighter and enforced harder than the signage suggests on any other morning of the week. 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. The day is built around that window.

Interwar LCC estate, 1960s and 1970s council block, Victorian terrace remnant and 2010s infill. A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. 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. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Balcony-access blocks and deck walkways mean a long carry from the parking court, and lifts in the older blocks are small and frequently out of service; match days around the stadium close roads and fill every kerb. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. 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. It decides panel size before anything is cut.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day. Assume the carry, not the drive - if the lift is down, a 3m piece is not going up a deck-access stair, so it gets cut to two.

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. Dry-lay first, always. 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. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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.

Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Same slab run as the tops. 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.