Worktop installation in Biggin Hill

Yes. Biggin Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TN16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. 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. The carry length sets the number of hands on the job. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

The roof space above carries services, so a boiler flue or a soil vent can drop into a corner of the kitchen and stay exactly there. 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. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see.

Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. 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. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The building keeps working around us.

It is walked round rather than looked at from one side, so the direction the veining runs along it cannot be hidden against a wall the way it can on a perimeter run. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Nothing bears on plasterboard. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The managing agent books the lift, not the household.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Everything on one level means no stairs, no landings and no turns, which is about the easiest carry there is in domestic work. 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. Fixings go into what the wall actually is.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. A shallow bay or a squared-off rear window means the run beneath it is rarely the same depth at both ends. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Silicone finishes the job; it does not rescue it.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Some of them overhang on two sides at once, and each side is worked out separately, because the load on an edge people lean against is not the load on an edge people walk past. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Levels are checked across the walkway, not along one side.