Worktop installation in East Finchley

Yes. East Finchley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N2. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. 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. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

There is a solid base under the old scullery end and suspended timber where the addition meets the house, and the two part company along that joint. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The house sets the order of work. A partition that gives when you lean on it will give under someone sitting at an overhang, and a bonded mitre nearby is where that movement shows first. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again.

The top step is rarely the end of it, because a door swinging out onto the landing has to be held back before a piece can come off the flight. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. 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. 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. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Fire doors stay shut, so the carry route is longer. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The last trade in inherits every delay before it.

A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Where a peninsula returns into a stud wall the load has to sit on the units, with the wall doing no more than steadying it. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The managing agent books the lift, not the household.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The original range recess often survives as a shallow alcove with an iron lintel over it, a hundred millimetres deeper than the wall either side of it. 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. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Waterfall legs are set before the top is bonded down.

What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A permit covering the street is permission to park rather than a space reserved on it, and on a full street the difference is the whole morning. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools.