Worktop installation in East Wickham

Yes. East Wickham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. 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. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The wall between the kitchen and the hall is load-bearing blockwork rather than a stud, so an opening through it is a lintel job and not an afternoon with a bolster. The carry is the constraint. Settlement is packed out, never levered out. 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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone.

Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. 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.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop fabrication. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence.

A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access confirmed rather than assumed.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Whole streets went up to two or three plans, so the house next door has the same kitchen and forty years of extensions have made none of them measure the same. Deck access or a single narrow staircase with tight half-landings means long pieces get walked up on edge, and the landing turn is checked before we commit. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. The piece is offered up, marked, taken back out and cut, and that cycle can run twice before anything is bonded down. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads.

Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.