Worktop installation in Chase Cross

Yes. Chase Cross is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM5. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The kitchen is at the front or the back depending on the plan, and which it is decides whether there is a rear door on the route at all. The fitting itself is about squaring up to walls that look modern and are not: block or breeze walls with a skim that has been patched over decades, so we still dry-lay and scribe rather than trust the template edge. A structure this old is worked with, not corrected. 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. 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.

Bollards, planters and a one-way service road can turn what looks like a ten-metre carry into a fifty-metre one. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.

The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is cut on site if the bench can do it. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Unlock any rear or shared path gate and clear both the hall and the back approach so we can choose the better route on the day. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One visit where permission only stretches to one.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. 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.

If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The first hand off the van is the one holding the clock.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. 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. Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. A galley is levelled as one plane, both sides together.