Kitchen worktops in Underhill

Yes. Interwar family stock below the hill with standard rear kitchens, and the usual improvement is a small rear extension or a knock-through into the dining room rather than anything ambitious. Finished layouts run to about 3.6m with a short return and a freestanding cooker kept in place. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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 strip-out waits until the new stone has somewhere to stand.

1930s semi, interwar terrace and post-war estate housing. Plaster in the older half is a sand and cement backing on brick while the newer half is board on dabs, so the same fixing bites in one wall and breaks through the other. 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. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not.

The whole area slopes towards the valley bottom, so driveways fall away from the house and some front paths climb several steps. Roads are residential and parking is manageable outside school times. Pieces get staged in the ground floor lobby and sent up singly, which needs somewhere to stand them where nobody will walk into them. 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. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. That family has lived on a building site long enough. Falling driveways mean the tail lift never sits level here, so the slab has to come off on the flat section of road and be carried in.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Where the seam went before is not where it goes now. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The whole slot, or the stone waits. 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. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. The drains run down the side alley to a gully and an inspection cover near the back door, and the sink waste has always gone out on that side of the house. The junction between the old floor and the extension floor is where a run crossing it needs packing before stone goes on. The building has kept moving; the new template catches up.

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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in by hand. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. A piece is stood on end only where there is room to turn it.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. A good number have a garage attached to the flank wall with a door through from the kitchen, which is both a way in and a stretch of wall the run cannot use. The recess is measured again once the old top is out, since the original fit was often cut to whatever it found. What is behind the old splashback decides the new one.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Stone wants gables where laminate needed none.