Worktop installation in Clapham Park

Yes. Clapham Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW4, SW2. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. 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 carry length sets the number of hands on the job. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The rear door has a concrete step and a small canopy over it, and that step is the whole of the difference between the kitchen floor and the garden path. The carry is the constraint. The shell has the last word on fitting day. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. 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.

Pieces get staged in the ground floor lobby and sent up singly, which needs somewhere to stand them where nobody will walk into them. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop replacement comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Handover day is a hard stop. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together.

Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. 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. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. The original units were screwed to timber grounds set into the wall, and where those were torn out the plaster was patched rather than replaced. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Silicone finishes the job; it does not rescue it.

Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. 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. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.