Worktop installation in Charlton

Yes. Charlton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE7. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

These were built with a scullery that has since been swallowed by an extension, leaving a change of floor level roughly where the run crosses. 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 fabric gets handled as old fabric. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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.

Where the staircase comes down into the hall the bottom treads project into the width, and nothing about that can be moved for the day. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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.

It is walked round rather than looked at from one side, so the direction the veining runs along it cannot be hidden against a wall the way it can on a perimeter run. 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 alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

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. 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. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Protection goes down first.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Lower ground floor kitchens are reached by a stair with a winder in it, and the head height over that winder is lower than the room at either end. 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.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Some of them overhang on two sides at once, and each side is worked out separately, because the load on an edge people lean against is not the load on an edge people walk past. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass.

A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. A tiled hall floor takes a dropped corner badly, so boards go down over the tiles before anything comes through the door. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Every piece is staged to it before fitting starts.