Kitchen worktops in Gascoigne

Yes. A large regeneration area where older system-built blocks are being replaced by new flats and maisonettes, so the work splits between compact original flat kitchens getting a hard-wearing replacement top and newer units where owners upgrade the developer's finish. Kitchens are small and linear — one wall, sometimes with a short return, and no island anywhere. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

1960s tower block, 1960s low-rise flat and 2010s-2020s regeneration housing. Kitchens are compact and standardised, which makes the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines a larger share of the total than the stone. 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.

Flats above ground level throughout, so it is lifts, communal stairs, narrow landings and fire doors, with delivery times often restricted by the managing agent. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A plumber either side of us. Fire doors and 90-degree landings are the real limit on flat jobs here, so lengths are cut to what will physically turn on the landing.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Corners get their own pieces. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Units kept, surface changed. 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.