Worktop installation in Chessington

Yes. Chessington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT9. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. 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. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The original kitchen was a small rear room with a larder and a back door, and nearly all of them have since been opened into the dining room. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall.

Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. 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 spotter on the van is a man off the tools.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The void ends whether we have finished or not. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear.

A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. 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. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Where the provider has set the specification the material choice was made once for a great many kitchens, and the useful work is meeting it exactly rather than proposing something else on the day. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The window over the sink sits at about worktop height, so the run is set out around the sill and the reveal rather than under them. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Overhangs get brackets before anyone leans on them.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. 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.

Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A shared house stays occupied while we work in it.