Kitchen worktops in Chingford Hatch

Yes. Post-war semis with a kitchen of around 2.4m by 2.8m and a wide rear window, often left as a separate room with a U-shaped layout because the dining room is used for dining. Where extensions have been added they are typically modest rear infills giving a 3.2m run. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

post-war semi-detached, 1950s-60s estate house and cul-de-sac infill. Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. Post-war terraces have a fairly shallow, standardised kitchen, and the walls tend to lean rather than bow, so the scribe at worktop height is different from the one at plinth level - the template only cares about the line where the stone will land. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Cul-de-sac layouts with wide verges and driveways make parking easy, though some closes are too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn and need reversing in. Level thresholds and wide rear access are the norm. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. U-shaped post-war kitchens need three pieces with two internal corner joints, and the corner joints want to be mitred rather than butted for a clean line.

Three runs means two internal corners, and each corner is a decision about mitre or butt joint before anything is nested. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. 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.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.