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. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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 waste run is planned, not improvised.

1930s semi, LCC estate house and post-war infill. Many have been extended at the rear since being sold, so the kitchen is half original and half newer with a floor junction between the two. Concrete and dense block walls in ex-council stock cannot be chased back or packed out to suit, so the template takes the wall exactly as it is and the stone carries the scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

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. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. 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.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. 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. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. 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.

Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed. 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.