Kitchen worktops in Old Kent Road

Yes. The corridor itself is filling with new tall blocks whose kitchens are a single compact run in an open-plan living space, while the terraced streets set back behind it have modest rear kitchens, often with a lean-to extension of 2.5m to 3m across the back. 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. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

Victorian terrace, 1960s and 1970s estate and 2020s regeneration tower. Piece size is set by the lift car and the entrance dogleg, which routinely turns a two-piece kitchen into a three-piece one. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. What is under the old top is the real question.

The road is a red route with continuous traffic and no stopping, so every job is worked from the side streets, and new blocks add gated basement parking with limited headroom. The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day. New-build handover kitchens here come with 20mm composite that is already chipped at the sink cutout, so replacement is usually about matching an existing sink and tap footprint.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the laser plots the intermediate points. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. 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. Splashbacks are cut from the same slab run as the tops, so they have to be decided before fabrication, not after. Same slab run as the tops. 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.