Worktop installation in Balham

Yes. Balham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW12. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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. The kerb decides the start time. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Lease conditions and the other flats in the building decide when noisy work can happen, so the fitting day has a start and a finish that are not ours to set. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall.

A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Van to door is the distance that matters.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Handover day is a hard stop.

Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out.