Kitchen worktops in Sutton Common

Yes. Very uniform 1930s suburban semis with the original kitchen at the rear next to a small lobby and outside WC. The standard job is knocking the lobby in and running a 3.6m worktop along the back wall with a return under the side window. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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 van has to stand through both halves of the day.

1930s bay-fronted semi, 1930s terrace, post-war infill and small modern block. There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not.

Front drives on most of the semis and side passages wide enough for a slab, which makes this some of the easiest access in the borough. A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract. Because the old outside WC wall comes out, the back wall is part original brick and part new blockwork with a plaster join, and the scribe has to pick up the step where the two meet.

An aisle under a metre stops being a working space the moment two people are in it, and the depth of the tops either side is what decides whether that happens. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw. 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.

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. 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. The room cleared before the crew arrives. 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.

Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Crittall windows were swapped for plastic ones in openings that were made good rather than rebuilt, which leaves reveals that are neither straight nor equal. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Twenty years of settlement is measured, not argued with.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The back door frequently opens straight into the kitchen, which is the best carry route in the house and the one people forget to mention. The recess is measured again once the old top is out, since the original fit was often cut to whatever it found. The building has kept moving; the new template catches up.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A dishwasher door on one side and an oven door on the other cannot both stand open in a narrow aisle, so which appliance goes where matters more in this shape than in any other. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Height change is checked before we cut.