Worktop installation in Carshalton

Yes. Carshalton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM5. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Lime plaster over rubble moves in and out enough that a single long panel will show a gap somewhere along its length. 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. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone.

Two people will walk a two-metre piece in through a front door; the same hall with a three-metre piece wants four, purely because nobody can let go halfway. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on 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. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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.

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. 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. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set. 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. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. 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.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Sockets set into the end panel keep the top clear, but they sit below the stone and are cut into the panel by the fitter rather than machined into the worktop. 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.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. 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. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. A range or an Aga in an original recess is usually immovable, so the run is designed around it and the clearances come from the appliance. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. Fixings go into what the wall actually is.