Worktop installation in Canning Town

Yes. Canning Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E16. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. 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. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The handrail is fixed to the wall side of the flight, so the clear width at hand height is a hundred millimetres less than the stair measures at the tread. The carry is the constraint. The tops go on level even when nothing else is. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Nothing bears on plasterboard.

Standing a three-metre length on end takes more headroom outside the car than inside it, and a low lobby ceiling is what actually stops it. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before. 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. 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 that come up most, though worktop replacement comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The void ends whether we have finished or not.

Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. 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. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The balcony door frequently opens off the kitchen, which puts a threshold, a draught and a well-used route through one end of the run. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Nothing is cut in the room if the shop could do it.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Managed buildings allow deliveries through the lift only between set hours, and a day that overruns them finishes with the last piece still on the pavement. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The kitchen doorway is usually offset into a corner, so one leg of an L is short before anyone has designed anything. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. The last piece down is the one nearest the door.

Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear.