Kitchen worktops in Thamesmead

Yes. The original estate housing has small planned kitchens with concrete or dense blockwork walls and standard 600mm units in a single or double run; the later brick-built housing association terraces are slightly more generous but still galley. Islands are rare because the rooms were never sized for them. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

1960s-70s system-built concrete estate, deck-access maisonette, 1980s housing association terrace and 2010s regeneration block. Walls are dense block or in-situ concrete with a bonded plaster, so the bottom course of tiles brings plaster with it when the old top comes off. Concrete and dense block walls in ex-council stock cannot be chased back or packed out to suit, so the template takes the wall exactly as it is and the stone carries the scribe. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Raised pedestrian decks, podium levels and garage undercrofts mean the front door is often nowhere near where the van can park, and some blocks are reached only by a walkway or a small lift. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. 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 replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. 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. Fixing into precast concrete needs the right anchors and serious dust control — nothing here takes a plasterboard fixing.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. The drawing leaves site complete. A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. Splashbacks are cut from the same slab run as the tops, so they have to be decided before fabrication, not after. Decided before fabrication, not after. 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.