Worktop installation in Coombe (Kingston)

Yes. Coombe (Kingston) is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT2. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. The day is built around that window. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. These are drawing-office jobs - book-matched islands, mitred 100mm aprons and full-height panels, so the slab is chosen off the rack before templating.

Private gated estate roads with entry codes and a caretaker, long in-and-out driveways with ample standing, and rear garden access wide enough to bring stone round the outside instead of through the house. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop design & quotation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Where an annexe has been built or converted, its floor and its walls are newer than the main house and behave differently under the same run. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. 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. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. 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. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.