Worktop installation in Chadwell Heath

Yes. Chadwell Heath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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 template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Carried once, and carried properly. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. 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 short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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. Households sharing a house tend to want two prep areas rather than one, which usually means an island as well as a perimeter run. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A missing sink stops eight kitchens, not one. A second kitchen or a kitchenette in an annexe is a small job with the same fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines as a large one. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Back-to-back slots need every flat ready on the first day.

Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. 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. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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. Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. 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 is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A picture rail, a deep skirting and a moulded architrave all sit in the way of anything that assumes flat wall from floor to ceiling. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Sink and hob seated and sealed before we go.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. A bay-fronted terrace has a long hall running past the stairs to the kitchen, so the hall turn caps the piece length before the run length does. 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. Old floors get packed, not argued with.