Kitchen worktops in Cheam

Yes. The most substantial family housing in the borough. Large 1930s detached houses with rear extensions producing kitchen-diners of 6m or more, islands over 2.5m with a breakfast overhang, separate utilities and often a second sink and a boiling tap. Overhanging branches clear the roof of a car and catch the roof of a van, so the drive is looked at from the driver seat rather than from the doorstep. 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. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden.

1930s mock-Tudor detached, Edwardian house, conservation-area cottage and large post-war detached. The external wall on the passage side has never been rendered, so it is cold, solid and honest to fix into. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The tops go on level even when nothing else is.

Wide roads with generous in-and-out drives and space to unload off the highway, though the village conservation area itself is tight with loading restrictions near the parade. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The longest piece is capped in the workshop, deliberately.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. A batch split across two weeks stops being a batch. This is where the big single-piece islands go, so slab selection and vein matching across the island and the tall-unit return is discussed with the client before anything is cut.

Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A corner that will not close is never forced. 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. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. A deep relief needs material left behind it. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. Late changes are priced rather than absorbed quietly. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. 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. Every unit gets a level on it before a piece lands.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The notch is machined, never ground in later.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. 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. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. Nothing leaves the bench longer than the way in allows.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid.