Kitchen worktops in New Addington

Yes. A large planned estate with highly repetitive layouts: small rectangular kitchens of around 2.4-3m of run, a larder or broom cupboard in the corner, and a back door onto a rear garden. Nearly all work is replacing worn tops on existing units, with an upstand instead of tiles. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

1930s-50s cottage estate, post-war terrace, low-rise maisonette and 1990s regeneration housing. The window sits in the middle of the run over the sink, and its board and cill set the limit on how tall an upstand can be. Chipboard carcasses under the sink swollen from a slow leak will not take stone and get replaced before fit day. What is under the old top is the real question.

Wide estate roads, grass verges you must not drive on, and long shared paths serving several front doors. Maisonettes have external stairs with a handrail that limits how you can swing a piece. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. Because the house types repeat across the whole estate, once you have templated one kitchen you know the run length on the next, but you still template every one because previous owners have moved the back door.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Height change is checked before we cut. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. Splashbacks are cut from the same slab run as the tops, so they have to be decided before fabrication, not after. The wall has to be ready. 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.