Kitchen worktops in South Chingford

Yes. Predominantly semis with a rear kitchen of about 2.6m by 2.6m, a side door to the passage and a separate dining room, most commonly opened up into a single L-shaped room. Boilers are usually still kitchen-mounted and are worked around rather than moved. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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.

1930s semi-detached, post-war council-built house and interwar terrace. The chimney breast in the corner has usually been left in place, so the run gains a return and two scribed ends. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. That is the shape of the day.

Straightforward suburban streets with driveways, crossovers and side passages, so the van parks on the drive and the stone goes down the side of the house. A few post-war estate roads have parking courts with height barriers. The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Side passages here are typically around 900mm, which passes a standard 600mm depth top on edge but not a 1m island slab, so check before planning the route.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. 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.

These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan. 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.