Joiner in East Liverpool and Knowsley

This belt is largely interwar semis and Victorian terraces, with some older property around West Derby village. The semis have the familiar pattern: bay, hall, two reception rooms, a back kitchen and a pantry, with alcoves either side of the chimney breast upstairs.

The most common piece of work is the kitchen, and specifically the pantry. In most of these houses the pantry is a cold, narrow cupboard that is no longer earning its space, and taking it into the kitchen gives a run long enough to plan properly. It is a joinery job as much as a kitchen job, because the opening has to be made good and the run has to be set out across what was two rooms.

The terraces towards Tuebrook have the same issues as the Bootle and Tranmere stock: repeated cheap refurbishment, out-of-square openings and trim that has been over-boarded rather than replaced.

Kirkby and much of Huyton are planned postwar, built quickly and to a standard. The good news is the consistency: once a house type is known, the next one is familiar and the price is accurate. Openings are regular and blockwork takes a fixing.

Ground floors are generally solid, which brings the same moisture question as the low Wirral estates before any wood flooring goes in.

Knowsley Industrial Park and the business space around Prescot are a substantial source of commercial joinery: offices inside units, mezzanine fit-outs, welfare and training rooms, partitions and boxing in.

Access on those estates is good and deliveries are easy, so the programme is usually set by the client's operation rather than the building. It is a straight run out along the motorway from us.

Prescot has changed a good deal in the last few years, with new build going up alongside the older terraced streets and the town centre being reworked. New build brings its own joinery: timber frame rather than block, taped and jointed plasterboard rather than wet plaster, and fixings that have to find a stud rather than going anywhere. It is a different way of working from the rest of this area and it is worth saying which you have when you enquire.