Kitchen worktops in Whalebone

Yes. The strip between Chadwell Heath and Becontree Heath, mixing estate housing with privately built inter-war semis, so kitchen sizes vary within a couple of streets of each other. Most jobs are moderate: a new set of units in the existing footprint, a 3m run and a short return, with a peninsula only where the dining room wall has already gone. 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. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

1930s semi, LCC estate house and post-war infill. Walls are dense block or in-situ concrete with a bonded plaster, so the bottom course of tiles brings plaster with it when the old top comes off. Unit height is the other issue: legs sit on an uneven screed or hard concrete with no give, so the laser reads the top of every carcass rather than assuming they share a height. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Residential streets with a good share of dropped kerbs, but Whalebone Lane itself is a heavily used north-south route where stopping a van is not practical. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The laser records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A day, not a project. Because the stock alternates between private and estate-built houses on the same street, we always measure rather than working from a house type.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. One datum for the whole room. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The laser plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.