Kitchen worktops in St Mary Cray

Yes. Predominantly compact kitchens in ex-local-authority terraces and maisonettes, 2.4-3m single runs with a hob and sink on the same wall and very little worktop either side. Landlord and buy-to-let replacements are a large share of the work. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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.

post-war council terrace, 1960s maisonette, old village cottage and 1980s 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. Concrete and dense block walls in ex-council stock cannot be chased back or packed out to suit, so the template takes the wall exactly as it is and the stone carries the scribe. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Estate roads with parking bays and grass verges you cannot drive over, plus first-floor maisonettes reached by external stairs and a shared landing. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating, in that order. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Appliances on site, not on order. For maisonette stairwells we cut to fit and bring the pieces up on edge, because you cannot swing a full length round a half-landing.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. 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. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

Access in a tenanted flat depends on the tenant, so the template and fitting dates are agreed with whoever actually holds the keys. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.