Kitchen worktops in Dagenham

Yes. The broader Dagenham area covers a lot of inter-war estate housing plus post-war blocks, so the two main jobs are the classic estate-house knock-through and a compact flat kitchen refit. Family houses here often want a big robust surface for everyday cooking rather than a showpiece island, and matching upstands rather than a full slab splashback. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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.

1930s LCC cottage estate house, post-war semi, 1960s-1970s flat and modern infill. An ex-council house is solidly built to a standard plan, with the kitchen at the rear and a back door next to it. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. What is under the old top is the real question.

Generally good — wide estate roads, front gardens, hardstanding and free parking on most streets, though the flat blocks bring the usual lift and landing constraints. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Most Dagenham jobs are about maximising continuous run length in a small room, so we plan the sink and hob positions to leave one usable stretch of at least 900mm.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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.