Kitchen worktops in South Harrow

Yes. Smaller interwar semis and estate houses with tight rear kitchens, a lot of which have had a modest 2m to 3m rear addition rather than a full extension, giving an L-shaped kitchen with the washing machine still in the run. Utility rooms are rare and the boiler frequently sits above the worktop. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

1930s semi, interwar cottage estate and 1970s low-rise flat. The ground floor is a solid slab with a bitumen membrane and no void under it, so services either run on the surface or get chased into something hard. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. Chipboard that has taken water will not take stone.

Hilly ground towards Northolt Road with sloping driveways and stepped front paths, and shopping-parade flats above the main road that need a rear stair carry from a service yard. Booked delivery windows on a managed estate run to an hour, and a worktop install does not happen inside an hour. 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. Upstands make almost any turn a worktop will not.

Worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified. Wall-mounted boilers and meter boxes above the run mean upstand heights vary along the same wall, so record each section rather than one global dimension.

One leg of an L is nearly always the working run and the other little more than a landing space, but both are templated, cut and edged to the same standard. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Any overhang gets underpinned first. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. 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. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units. 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 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Priced on its own line so it can be deferred. 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.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Copper pipework is clipped along the top of the skirting rather than buried in many of these, and it holds the carcasses off the wall by a few millimetres. Plaster bonded straight onto concrete comes away with the bottom course of tiles, leaving a band behind the upstand. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in.

Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. There is nothing to pay before the template visit. The kitchen doorway is usually offset into a corner, so one leg of an L is short before anyone has designed anything. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Whatever the old top hid comes to light.

The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. What changes is the surface. The carcasses underneath stay where they are. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Two loads, one space, one day.