Worktop installation in Albany Park

Yes. Albany Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA5, DA14. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Overhanging branches clear the roof of a car and catch the roof of a van, so the drive is looked at from the driver seat rather than from the doorstep. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

Runs are short enough that a single slab covers the whole kitchen, which makes the material choice the main lever on the total. 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. The tops go on level even when nothing else is. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut.

Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run. On a drive that only takes one vehicle nose-in, the van has to reverse the whole length of it to get back out, which decides which way it goes in. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A locked door costs the day, not an hour.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. 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 back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. A piece is stood on end only where there is room to turn it.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The join is the last thing finished.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Support first, stone second.