Kitchen worktops in Thamesmead

Yes. The original estate housing has small planned kitchens with concrete or dense blockwork walls and standard 600mm units in a single or double run; the later brick-built housing association terraces are slightly more generous but still galley. Islands are rare because the rooms were never sized for them. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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. A one-hour window will not hold a two-way job.

1960s-70s system-built concrete estate, deck-access maisonette, 1980s housing association terrace and 2010s regeneration block. The wall between the kitchen and the hall is load-bearing blockwork rather than a stud, so an opening through it is a lintel job and not an afternoon with a bolster. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now.

Raised pedestrian decks, podium levels and garage undercrofts mean the front door is often nowhere near where the van can park, and some blocks are reached only by a walkway or a small lift. The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. 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. It decides panel size before anything is cut.

Worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Cut with the tops while the batch is open. Fixing into precast concrete needs the right anchors and serious dust control, nothing here takes a plasterboard fixing.

Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. A run that flexed under laminate gets support now. A partition that gives when you lean on it will give under someone sitting at an overhang, and a bonded mitre nearby is where that movement shows first. 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. A breast return is scribed on three edges. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. A deferred splashback still comes off this drawing. 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.

Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Appliance gaps are checked against the new thickness.

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. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. A corbel on show under an overhang is a decision about how the piece looks from a stool, so it gets settled alongside the edge profile rather than left to whoever fits it. The shape is already there to be measured, which makes the template straightforward and leaves the strip-out as the part that actually needs planning. The island top is the one that may want its own slab.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where a peninsula returns into a stud wall the load has to sit on the units, with the wall doing no more than steadying it. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. Set it proud on a subframe and the gap becomes deliberate.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day.