Worktop installation in Catford

Yes. Catford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE6. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. 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.

Open-tread and cantilevered stairs give nothing to lean a piece against, so the whole weight stays on the crew for the full length of the flight. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. 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. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence.

A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. 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 alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. 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. A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. 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 template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Original quarry tile is often still down under two or three later floor coverings, which is why the finished floor height is rarely what anyone expects. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Sink and hob seated and sealed before we go.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A handrail that has to come off before a piece will pass is twenty minutes at the start of the day, and it goes back on the wall before we leave. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. 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.

What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. 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. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first.