Worktop fabrication in Battersea Park

Yes. Battersea Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW11. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. 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. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The load plan follows from it. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The lift is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a turn at every half-landing. The lift, if there is one, is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a tight turn at every half-landing - so pieces get cut deliberately shorter than the slab allows and the kitchen is designed with more joins than it strictly needs. The saw follows the template, never the plan. Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Geometry first, then the saw.

Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. It is settled on the bench, not on site. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Spares crated with the batch and labelled by unit. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Same slab run, or it is not a match.

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. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Drawn onto the slab before it is cut. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how far the stone has to be relieved changes which part of the slab the piece is cut from. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. A square internal corner is a crack waiting. Access arrangements and the porter's permitted hours need confirming before we cut, because the agreed piece size is what the nesting is built around. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. Late changes are priced rather than absorbed quietly.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. 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 join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Mitres are cut as pairs, off one setting.

Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. That is the last thing settled before dispatch.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. A downstand over a run caps wall unit height before it caps anything else, and the splashback then takes its height from the steel rather than from the units. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Oversize on the scribe edge, always.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. Once the cut-outs are machined there is no going back on it.