Worktop installation in Bow

Yes. Bow is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. 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 the van stands sets how the day runs. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

The kitchen occupies the ground floor of the addition with a garden door at the far end, so there is a second way in that is narrower than the front door and a great deal shorter. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Levelled first, then set, then sealed. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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.

The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. 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. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. 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. The building keeps working around us. 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. A slipped slot takes the next one with it.

An aisle under a metre stops being a working space the moment two people are in it, and the depth of the tops either side is what decides whether that happens. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Waterfall legs are set before the top is bonded down. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Nothing bears on plasterboard. 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. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys.

Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. 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. One visit, our own installers.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A dishwasher door on one side and an oven door on the other cannot both stand open in a narrow aisle, so which appliance goes where matters more in this shape than in any other. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The step between rooms is packed out first.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

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 behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. The chimney breast has almost always been taken out of the kitchen with the stack left standing above it, so that bay of wall is newer plasterwork on a different plane. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Carried once, and carried properly.