Worktop installation in Castle Green

Yes. Castle Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM9, IG11. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

These were built in short runs of six or eight houses, so the party walls are solid brick and the rear elevation is a straight line with no outriggers. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. 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.

A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. 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. 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.

Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. 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. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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.

Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. The under-stair cupboard opens off the kitchen in most of them, and its door swing is the reason a corner run stops where it does. A run crossing from the original room into the extension is packed to one plane before the stone is offered up. Fixings go into what the wall actually is.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The chimney breast served a back boiler and is usually still standing, so there is a shallow recess on one side of the room. The side route is boarded where it crosses a soft path or a border, and the gate is measured rather than assumed. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. 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.