Worktop installation in Beckton

Yes. Beckton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E6, E16. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. 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. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

A bay-fronted terrace has a long hall running past the stairs to the kitchen, so the hall turn caps the piece length before the run length does. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The house sets the order of work. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The carry length sets the number of hands on the job.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Sealed before we leave.

A breakfast bar on the outer side is an overhang like any other, and the support under it is sized for people leaning on the end rather than for the weight of the stone alone. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Support first, stone second. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is. 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. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. 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. 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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. 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. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. 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 laying order follows the shape.

The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.