Worktop installation in Blackhorse Lane

Yes. Blackhorse Lane is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E17. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Waltham Forest. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. 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. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Ceilings are high and there are usually no wall units, so a splashback runs to whatever height is decided rather than to a cupboard. These read as easy from the outside and rarely are. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first. 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. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. 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 van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement and worktop fabrication. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Levels are checked across the walkway, not along one side. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

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. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall. Confirm loading bay access and lift booking with the building's management, and clear any furniture from the mezzanine stairs or split-level approach. Nobody reseals a worktop annually in a let property, so a material that depends on being resealed is the wrong specification however well it photographs. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One visit where permission only stretches to one.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. 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. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Exposed brick and steel is the whole job here, because neither of them presents a flat plane to scribe to. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Sink and hob seated and sealed before we go.

Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Order is what matters: a slab is templated before it is cut, so an uncut slab is straightforward and one already machined for another kitchen is not. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A slipped slot takes the next one with it.