Kitchen worktops in Blackheath

Yes. Around the village and the heath, tall Georgian and Victorian houses put the kitchen on the lower ground or in a rear extension, with long narrow runs and a lot of freestanding-look joinery. In the Span estates off Blackheath Park the kitchens are small, precisely planned and open to the living space, where a heavy 30mm slab overpowers the original detailing. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. Two hours is the realistic figure.

Georgian terrace, early Victorian villa, 1950s-60s Span estate at Blackheath Park and Edwardian detached. Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. The other constraint is the hall: a piece has to come through the front door, round the newel at the foot of the stairs and through a doorway into the back kitchen, so we size the pieces to the tightest turn on that route before we nest anything, which sometimes means splitting a run that would otherwise have gone in whole. The bench proves it before the van moves.

Conservation-area frontages with railings, lightwells and basement steps, tight permit parking around the village and the heath roads, and Span estates laid out around communal parking with a footpath carry to the door. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop replacement, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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. Lower-ground kitchens down a straight but narrow basement stair are the recurring problem — most pieces have to be jointed to get them in at all.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. The bench proves it before the van does. 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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

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. 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.