Worktop installation in Campden Hill

Yes. Campden Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W8. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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 van does not stay on a main road once it is empty. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

The closet wing is a narrow projection at the back with windows on two sides, which leaves very little continuous wall for a run. 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. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. 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. The awkward metre takes the longest.

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. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop fabrication. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes. 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. 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. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. The room cleared before the crew arrives.

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. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. 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.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass.