Worktop installation in Clerkenwell

Yes. Clerkenwell is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC1. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Islington. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. These read as easy from the outside and rarely are. The shell has the last word on fitting day. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Managed buildings allow deliveries through the lift only between set hours, and a day that overruns them finishes with the last piece still on the pavement. 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. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone 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. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop fabrication ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A shared house stays occupied while we work in it.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment. Confirm loading bay access and lift booking with the building's management, and clear any furniture from the mezzanine stairs or split-level approach. Access in a tenanted flat depends on the tenant, so the template and fitting dates are agreed with whoever actually holds the keys. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A void between tenancies has no spare days in it.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. 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. 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. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. The goods lift is generous and the flat entrance often is not, so the tightest point on the route is inside the flat rather than in the building. The goods lift is often industrial and generous, but the flat entrance and any internal turn into a mezzanine or split level can be tighter than anything in the building, so we walk the full route with a tape before unloading. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric.

What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Where only one car serves the building a breakdown on the morning halts the job outright, so the fallback route is worked out at template rather than on the landing. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley.