Worktop installation in Chelsea Harbour

Yes. Chelsea Harbour is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW10. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. 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. We would rather ask than guess. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A tower block runs one or two lifts for many floors, so a lift out of service postpones a job rather than making it harder. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. That is the shape of the day. Straightforward stone, bureaucratic building - book the goods lift and the bay a week out or you will be standing at the barrier with a full van.

Estate management controls the whole site: security barrier at the entrance, visitor and contractor registration, a designated loading bay and a booked goods lift with a fitted protection kit. Almost everything is above ground on a podium over parking, so there is a long level trolley run from the lift lobby to the flat door, and residents' corridors have carpet that needs boarding. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Sealed before we leave.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Protection goes down first.