Worktop installation 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. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Walls are solid brick with lime plaster and a hard skim over the top, and that skim comes away in sheets when old tiles are taken back. This is the most managed day we do. A structure this old is worked with, not corrected. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again.

Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. 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. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Encased steel is always bigger than the steel inside it, so the casing is what gets plotted, and a casing is rarely square to the wall it sits against. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun. Have the works booking confirmed with the managing agent or porter in advance, with the lift slot and any parking permit or bay suspension in place. 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. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Protection goes down first.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. A brick pier standing into the run divides it in two, and the join goes against the pier where a clear wall would have needed no join at all. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall.

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. Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. 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.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Sash windows sit in deep reveals with a working box behind the lining, so a run dying into one has to clear more than the plaster. The finish time is set by the block rather than by the work, so the sequence is planned to end early rather than to run late. The tops go on level even when nothing else is.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. The flats are stacked identically, so the kitchen above sits directly over this one and its waste passes through the same boxing. The lift is boarded and blanketed before the first piece leaves the van, and the porter is told the sequence. What the building will take decides how it is fixed.