Worktop installation in Camden Town

Yes. Camden Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW1. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. 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. Van to door is the distance that matters. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

A conversion takes kitchen waste to a stack added to the outside of the building, which fixes the sink position long before anyone draws a layout. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest.

Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted. 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. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence.

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. The step between rooms is packed out first. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut. 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. The room cleared before the crew arrives.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Nothing in a house of this age is square, and the kitchen is usually the part that has been altered most often. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The route is walked before the first lift.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The kitchen normally sits in the back addition or a later side return, which puts the run against the oldest and least straight wall in the building. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Sink and hob seated and sealed before we go.

A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. 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. Nothing is cut on site if the bench can do it.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands.