Worktop installation in Brondesbury Park

Yes. Brondesbury Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW6. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. 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. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

Original joinery is deep and stands proud of the plaster, so the run is plotted to the units rather than to the wall behind them. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. What the building will take decides how it is fixed. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Sealant seals. It does not fit.

A step up off the pavement means the piece is lifted to the threshold before it is carried anywhere, and that first lift is the one that wants four hands. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract. Where a single building holds several small kitchens, the work arrives as one job rather than four, and it should be cut off the same slab run so the batches genuinely match. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. That family has lived on a building site long enough.

A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. 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. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The awkward metre takes the longest. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Communal floors are protected the same as private ones.

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. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. The piece is offered up, marked, taken back out and cut, and that cycle can run twice before anything is bonded down. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Power and waste come up through the floor, and where they surface decides which cabinet can hold a sink and which one cannot. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass.