Kitchen worktops in South Croydon

Yes. Along the Brighton Road corridor the large villas are mostly flats with kitchens fitted into former reception rooms, so runs are long but interrupted by chimney breasts and cornice returns. Up the hill the 1930s semis are conventional family kitchens with rear extensions. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. Two hours is the realistic figure.

Victorian villa, Edwardian terrace, villa converted to flats and 1930s semi. A large villa has wide doors, a generous hall and somewhere to park, so the joins that go in are chosen for layout rather than forced by the route. Long perimeter runs and an island mean level has to hold across the whole room, so the templater sets a single datum and works every run and the island off it rather than levelling each wall in isolation. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Brighton Road is a main bus route with limited stopping, and the side roads run steeply uphill with permit bays. Converted flats have communal front doors and original staircases. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. That is part of what the visit is for.

Worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave. Fitting a run against a chimney breast in a converted reception room means two returns and two scribes on one piece, which takes longer to template than a straight wall twice the length.

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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. 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. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One visit, our own installers. 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.