Worktop installation in St Mary Cray

Yes. St Mary Cray is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR5. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. It is why the arrival time is what it is. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The internal stair is usually a straight flight with a tight top landing, and it is the landing rather than the flight that is the limit. Deck access or a single narrow staircase with tight half-landings means long pieces get walked up on edge, and the landing turn is checked before we commit. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. 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.

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. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional.

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. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Access in a tenanted flat depends on the tenant, so the template and fitting dates are agreed with whoever actually holds the keys. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Protection goes down first.