Kitchen worktops in Broad Green

Yes. Dense terraced streets off London Road with narrow back-addition kitchens, often 2.4m or less once the boiler and back door are accounted for. A high share of converted and multi-let properties means several small kitchens in one building rather than one large one. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace, flat above shop and multi-occupancy conversion. Lease conditions and the other flats in the building decide when noisy work can happen, so the fitting day has a start and a finish that are not ours to set. Pieces are sized to the tightest turn on the route before anything is nested to the slab. Settled on the drawing, cut once.

London Road is a bus corridor with double reds, so the van goes on a side street and the carry is 50 metres or more. Flats above shops are reached by a separate street door and a straight steep stair. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Worktop replacement, worktop fabrication and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Batching several kitchens together is the one situation where buying a whole slab is cheaper per kitchen rather than more expensive. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Short runs and multiple small kitchens in one building make this a job to batch, cutting several 2.4m pieces off one slab rather than treating each flat as a separate order.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Corners get their own pieces. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. 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. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. The wall has to be ready. 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.