Worktop installation in Broad Green

Yes. Broad Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. 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 kerb decides the start time. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The partitions put in at conversion are studwork standing on the old floor, so they take a fixing well but carry nothing, and a heavy end panel needs a different answer. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Fixings go into what the wall actually is. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. 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.

A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. 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. Van to door is the distance that matters.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop fabrication and worktop splashbacks & upstands. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. A landlord ordering several kitchens at once is buying a specification once and then repeating it, so the early decisions are worth taking slowly. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens. Shared-house kitchens take heavier use from more people than a family kitchen does, and the surface gets chosen on that basis rather than on looks. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. 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. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access confirmed rather than assumed.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. 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.

A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. The flat entrance door is a certified fire door on a closer, and taking it off for an hour means dealing with the seals and the closer before the day ends. 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. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork.

What changes is the surface. The carcasses underneath stay where they are. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.