Kitchen worktops in Tokyngton and Brent Park

Yes. Small original kitchens in semis and maisonettes, often still the 1980s or 1990s fit-out, replaced piecemeal rather than ripped out. The usual job is two straight runs of 2.5m to 3m either side of a back door, with the tall units left alone and only the tops and upstands changed. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

1930s semi, post-war maisonette and 1990s housing association terrace. A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. 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.

Wide-ish estate roads with parking on both sides and a fair number of ground-floor flats reached across a shared forecourt, so a barrow across paving is the normal approach rather than a long hall carry. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Budget-led area, so most jobs are like-for-like replacement in a keep-the-units kitchen and the money question is always whether the existing carcasses will take the weight without extra noggins.

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. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. 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. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed. 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.