Worktop installation in Ashburton

Yes. Ashburton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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. The clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. 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 house sets the order of work. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

A hall radiator or a coat hook at shoulder height takes a hundred millimetres off the usable width, and a hundred millimetres is often the entire margin. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional.

A dishwasher door on one side and an oven door on the other cannot both stand open in a narrow aisle, so which appliance goes where matters more in this shape than in any other. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Residents are given written notice before anyone attends, and that notice period rather than the workshop is what governs the earliest sensible start. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Owner or agent, somebody has to be reachable.

Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Where the hall runs straight through to the back the piece can be walked in flat, and it is only the two door frames that have to be cleared. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. A run crossing from the original room into the extension is packed to one plane before the stone is offered up. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. The back door frequently opens straight into the kitchen, which is the best carry route in the house and the one people forget to mention. The side route is boarded where it crosses a soft path or a border, and the gate is measured rather than assumed. Carried once, and carried properly.