Worktop installation in Earlsfield

Yes. Earlsfield is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW18. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. Where a loading concession applies at all, it holds only while something is being carried, which makes it a way to unload rather than a way to park. 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. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Boxed sash frames swallow a hundred millimetres of wall on each side of the opening, so the wall between a window and a corner is shorter than a plan makes it look. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

Where the hall runs straight through to the back the piece can be walked in flat, and it is only the two door frames that have to be cleared. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened. 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. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. Batching several kitchens together is the one situation where buying a whole slab is cheaper per kitchen rather than more expensive. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary. A licensed shared house has fire-door and escape-route rules that decide how and when stone can be carried through the common parts. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional.

The step or level change between the original room and the return is real, and the units need packing before stone goes across it. 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. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. 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. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Notice periods decide the date more often than the workshop.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Sash windows sit low in the rear wall, and the sill often lands below the height a worktop wants to run past. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The awkward piece goes in before the easy ones.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools.

A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. Rooflights along a side return mean the worktop is lit from directly above all day, which shows every ripple in a surface and every gap at a scribe. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Steel under the overhang before stone goes near it.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off the van. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves.