Kitchen worktops in Stonecot Hill

Yes. Ribbon development along the arterial road, so the houses are deep and narrow with a kitchen at the back of a long plan. Runs are usually a straight 3.2m with a return, and rear extensions are common because the gardens are long. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. The waste leaves with us, so the van has to still be there.

1930s ribbon-development semi, inter-war terrace, post-war infill and bungalow. These were built in short runs of six or eight houses, so the party walls are solid brick and the rear elevation is a straight line with no outriggers. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in.

The houses front a dual carriageway with a service road or a wide forecourt drive, which is fine for parking but means unloading with fast traffic passing a few metres away. A meter cupboard set into the hall wall narrows the run at exactly the height a carried piece travels. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens. Working off a forecourt on the arterial road means cones and a spotter, and we bring the pieces straight in rather than staging them on the drive.

Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. 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 chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Nothing bears on plasterboard. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access confirmed rather than assumed. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The under-stair cupboard opens off the kitchen in most of them, and its door swing is the reason a corner run stops where it does. The junction between the old floor and the extension floor is where a run crossing it needs packing before stone goes on. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. The chimney breast served a back boiler and is usually still standing, so there is a shallow recess on one side of the room. The recess is measured again once the old top is out, since the original fit was often cut to whatever it found. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Carcasses have to be sound first.