Worktop fabrication in Botany Bay

Yes. Botany Bay is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EN2. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Enfield. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

A period cottage has low ceilings, thick rubble-filled walls and a floor that has never been level, and the worktop is the thing that has to look straight. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. The bench proves it before the van moves. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Oversize on the scribe edge, always.

Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off the van. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. Crates are sized to clear the same openings the stone does. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. That is the last thing settled before dispatch.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. 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. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Quartz reorders in five years, a granite block does not. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Every flat cut off one drawing, errors included.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. A waterfall leg is cut in sequence off its own top. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The radius goes in at the bench, not on site. The range or Aga, the sink and the tap all need to be confirmed by model before nesting, because their clearances and hole positions set where the island can be cut. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. A provider specification is cut exactly as written.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. A deep relief needs material left behind it.

Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. 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. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Two people will walk a two-metre piece in through a front door; the same hall with a three-metre piece wants four, purely because nobody can let go halfway. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. Load order is set by the order the pieces will be carried.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Doorways are low and narrow, which is a genuine constraint on piece length before anything else is considered. The joins here are chosen rather than forced, so they go where the veining and the gables want them. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Cut-outs are machined with the piece bedded down.