Worktop installation in Beddington Corner

Yes. Beddington Corner is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR4, SM6. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. 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. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

That rear wall carries the back door and the only window, which leaves very little uninterrupted length for a sink run. The day is planned backwards from the hall. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Offered up twice, bonded once.

A carpeted hall runs a trolley badly, so a heavy piece is carried rather than rolled from the threshold in. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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 carry length sets the number of hands on the job.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time.

Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. 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. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Sealant seals. It does not fit. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. 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. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. 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 awkward metre takes the longest.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Many have had the ground floor chimney breast removed to gain three hundred millimetres, and the gained strip is newer blockwork standing proud of the old plaster. Pieces are stood on edge for the turns and carried flat for the straights, and that sequence is agreed before anything comes off the van. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints.

The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Injected damp courses and re-rendered lower walls leave the bottom metre standing proud of everything above it. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Packers under the carcass, not shims under the stone.

Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Where the walls have been dry-lined over the old lath there is a void behind the board and no solid fixing until a batten is found. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. One visit, our own installers.