Kitchen worktops in Dagenham Heathway

Yes. Estate houses either side of the Heathway plus a run of flats over the shopping parade, which are a different job entirely — small, no lift, and reached from a rear deck or a stairway between shops. The houses follow the Becontree pattern, while the parade flats take a single 2.4m run and a compact sink with a drainer groove because there is no room for a separate drainer. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. One trip is always better than three.

1930s LCC cottage estate house, flats above the shopping parade and post-war 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 rear kitchen wall in ex-council flats and maisonettes is commonly dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which means mechanical fixings are hard work and the splashback is held on adhesive rather than screwed. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Residential side roads are easy, but the Heathway itself is a busy shopping street with loading restrictions and enforcement, and parade flats have no vehicle access to the door. Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Above the parade there is nowhere to stop legally for long, so slabs are offloaded fast onto a trolley and the van moves before we start the carry.

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. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. 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. Where the wall cannot be made good, setting the stone deliberately proud on a subframe with a shadow gap reads as a detail rather than a bad fit. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. 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. Plumber either side of us. 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.