Kitchen worktops in Wood Street

Yes. A mix of un-extended terraces with 2.4m galley kitchens and larger Edwardian houses that have gone full-width at the rear with a 4m run and an island. The newer flats near the station have single-wall kitchens against a party wall with no island space. Visitor permits are issued to the household rather than to the trade, so the ones the day needs come from the customer and are best in hand the week before. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. We would rather ask than guess.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian bay-fronted house and recent station-area apartment block. The front door of the building sits at the top of a step off a tiled path, so the carry starts outside the building rather than at the door of the flat. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.

The railway splits the area, so streets on either side need approaching separately and the bridge and level crossing points create bottlenecks at peak times. Residential streets are permit-controlled with narrow bays, and terraces have no side access, so the route is front door, hall, through room, kitchen. Where the turn inside is tight the piece gets turned on the path and brought in already on edge, which needs room in front of the door as well as behind it. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. The way out is measured with the way in.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Where a single building holds several small kitchens, the work arrives as one job rather than four, and it should be cut off the same slab run so the batches genuinely match. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The flat earns nothing while it sits empty. The through-room route means every piece has to clear a pair of internal door openings, and 900mm island slabs frequently will not turn at the second one.

Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The stack was boxed in after the kitchen went in. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Strip-out and fit inside one access window. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. A postformed top swallowed the fall. This will not.

Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The kerb decides the start time.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The original stair has an open well running the full height of the building, which occasionally lets a long piece go up vertically where it would never take the turns. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. 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. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The return is offered up last.