Kitchen worktops in Streatham Hill

Yes. Purpose-built flats dominate, including 1930s blocks where the original kitchens are narrow galleys with a service door and a maid's cupboard, and the usual job is re-topping within that footprint. Larger Victorian houses that remain whole take a rear extension with a run and a small island. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. 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. Half a day of parking buys half a job.

Edwardian mansion block, 1930s modernist block, Large Victorian villa and Conversion flat. Permitted works hours are commonly weekdays with a late start and an early finish, so a one-day fit is planned around the porter and the lift. The lift car is usually too short and too low to take a full-length piece flat or on edge, so stone either goes up the communal stairs with their half-landings and winders, or the run is designed with joins that suit the staircase rather than the kitchen. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in.

Several of the blocks are listed or in a conservation area, so no fixings to communal fabric and no propping doors open; lifts are original and small. The A23 is a red route with no stopping, so unloading happens on side roads and the carry starts from there. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. 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. Joint positions follow from that.

Worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. 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. The 1930s galley kitchens are barely 1.8m wide, which means a standard 600mm top plus an opposite run leaves under 600mm of walking space, check the client actually wants both sides before fabricating.

Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. 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. 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. The reveal decides where the stone dies. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Nothing goes behind the hob until the wall is signed off. 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.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. The kitchen was a service room at the back of the flat, so it is a long way from the front door along a corridor with two turns in it. A full stone piece is several times the weight of the laminate coming out, and there is rarely room to turn it on a half-landing. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now.

Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. It decides panel size before anything is cut.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Walls are solid brick with lime plaster and a hard skim over the top, and that skim comes away in sheets when old tiles are taken back. Waste from the old top goes down in loads the lift and the building will accept rather than in one trip. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. 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. Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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.