Kitchen worktops in Sanderstead

Yes. Large detached houses on sloping plots with kitchens at the back looking down the valley, often with a rear extension stepping down to garden level. Islands of 2.4m plus, separate utilities and second ovens are common in the specification. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. That is the last thing settled before dispatch.

1930s detached, 1960s detached, large post-war house and 1980s close housing. Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Hilly roads with steep, often curved driveways and split-level frontages, so getting close to the door is fine but the last few metres involve a slope or a set of steps. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. Split-level rear extensions mean two worktop heights in one room, and clients often want a continuous stone look across the step, which has to be resolved as two separate runs with a deliberate break.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. 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.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.