Kitchen worktops in Goresbrook

Yes. Southern Becontree housing running down towards the industrial belt, with the standard inter-war house types plus newer infill on former employment land. The houses take the familiar knock-through, while the infill housing arrives with modern shallow units where a stone top needs a carefully judged overhang. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

1930s LCC cottage estate house, post-war housing and recent infill development. Kitchens are compact and laid out to a standard plan, so runs are short and joins are usually avoidable altogether. Rear or shared-path access is often the only way to bring a long piece in without turning it in the hall. That is the shape of the day.

Straightforward estate streets north of the railway; the closer you get to the A13 and the industrial edge, the more the roads carry heavy traffic and the less sense it makes to unload on them. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Modern infill units here are 560-570mm deep rather than 600mm, so the overhang is set on site once we see what has actually been fitted.

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. 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. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The laser plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. 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.