Worktop installation in Canada Water

Yes. Canada Water is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. 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. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Timber-frame construction with plasterboard linings means every fixing has to find a stud, and a peninsula end needs proper support built in beforehand. Everything comes up in the lift, so we measure the lift car's internal diagonal before the piece is loaded, because a car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a 3m worktop no matter how you stand it. The slow parts are slow for a reason. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. 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.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

A window at one end and a doorway at the other means one end of the run is lit from behind and the other is interrupted, so the two ends of the same length behave differently. 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 runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Book the service lift and loading bay with the building manager for the whole fitting window, and have the fob or key for lift override ready. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The room cleared before the crew arrives.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved.

Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. 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.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. Support goes in before stone does, so whatever steel, plywood or extra noggin the shape calls for is fitted while the room is still empty. A galley is levelled as one plane, both sides together.