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. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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. A skip on the frontage takes the space the van needed.

post-war council terrace, 1960s maisonette, old village cottage and 1980s infill. Where the kitchen is on the entrance level, the piece comes off the deck and turns straight in without going up or down at all. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Estate roads with parking bays and grass verges you cannot drive over, plus first-floor maisonettes reached by external stairs and a shared landing. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. 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. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well.

Worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands, 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. One conversion drawing repeats its mistakes six times. 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 full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. 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. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

Where the owner is not local, the decisions happen remotely, so photographs and a clear itemised drawing carry more weight than a showroom visit ever would. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Fitted with the tops if it was decided with them. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. A service duct runs between the kitchen and the bathroom stacked above it, and access to that duct stays open whatever the layout does. Plaster bonded straight onto concrete comes away with the bottom course of tiles, leaving a band behind the upstand. What is under the old top is the real question.

Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Where the kitchen has been opened into the living room the opening was trimmed with a steel, and a stub of the old wall was left standing at one end. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. The old top comes off in pieces, not whole.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. The external wall is a concrete panel with a modest window, so the run under it sits in a shallow reveal with a hard cill. Unit legs are reset where they have bottomed out on the slab, since the old top hid the difference and stone will not. Sound carcasses are the one condition.