Kitchen worktops in Custom House

Yes. Older terraces and council houses have small rear kitchens of around 2.2m to 2.6m with a pantry recess and a back door in the run. New replacement blocks have single-wall open-plan kitchens, so the work is either a small traditional refit or a like-for-like swap in a modern flat. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

interwar terrace, post-war council housing and recent regeneration apartment. Original quarry-tiled floors sit lower than a later screed, so a run crossing that junction needs the units packed to one level. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. That is the shape of the day.

Ongoing regeneration means hoardings, closed roads and diverted footways that change month to month, so the route needs checking on the day rather than from a map. Where houses survive there is decent kerb space and level front access, which makes those the straightforward jobs. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Site hoardings regularly block the road you templated from, so leave a bit of slack in the delivery window for a diverted approach.

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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. 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 template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Appliances on site, not on order. 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.