Worktop installation in East Sheen

Yes. East Sheen is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW14. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. 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. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These were built with a separate dining room, and most have had the wall between it and the kitchen taken out with a steel put in above. 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. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. 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.

A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. 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. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. 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. Fire doors stay shut, so the carry route is longer. 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. The last trade in inherits every delay before 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. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Scheme rules on working hours are checked first.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. 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. 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.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn.