Worktop installation in Belmont

Yes. Belmont is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA3. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Harrow. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The windows were steel to begin with and have been swapped for plastic in openings lined out to suit, so the reveal is now deeper than the brickwork behind it. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Old floors get packed, not argued with. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Support first, stone second. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. 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. Notice periods decide the date more often than the workshop.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Where the side return has been filled in, one side of the new room is old brick and the other is new blockwork, and the two do not behave alike. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The last piece down is the one nearest the door.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. The original room is timber over a ventilated void and the newer half is a slab, so the floor gives underfoot on one side of the junction and not on the other. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them.