Worktop installation in Coulsdon

Yes. Coulsdon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR5. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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 drive and a red route make two different fitting days. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The consumer unit and the meter tails often sit in a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, and that cupboard has to stay reachable whatever goes in around it. 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. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first. Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The first hand off the van is the one holding the clock.

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. 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. 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. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. 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.

Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A forced back edge cracks weeks later. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys.

A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Rear extensions on these sit on shallow foundations, and the crack at the junction with the original wall tells you which way it has moved. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. A settled floor adds an hour and the day allows for it.

What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. A radiator sits under the rear window on the outside wall, and moving it is plumbing that belongs before the template rather than after it. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. The building moved decades ago and the fit allows for it.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Every piece is staged to it before fitting starts.