Worktop fabrication in Eastcote

Yes. Eastcote is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA5, HA4. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hillingdon. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. Stacking order is a parking decision here. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

These were built with generous circulation, so an island or a peninsula fits in a room that would be too tight in a house of the same floor area. Most of these have a side passage and a back door, so a full-length piece can usually reach the kitchen without being cut down, and the piece sizing is driven by the slab rather than the route. The saw follows the template, never the plan. A downstand over a run caps wall unit height before it caps anything else, and the splashback then takes its height from the steel rather than from the units. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The measured wall angle travels to the saw.

The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The longest piece is capped in the workshop, deliberately. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. The van is packed to suit the walk at the other end.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop installation ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Short runs waste more slab than long ones do. 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. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. The annexe top comes off the main kitchen slab.

A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. A waterfall leg is cut in sequence off its own top. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Encased steel is always bigger than the steel inside it, so the casing is what gets plotted, and a casing is rarely square to the wall it sits against. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Yield drops the moment the back edge stops being straight. The peninsula end detail needs deciding up front - square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall - because a waterfall end has to be cut in sequence off the same part of the slab as the top. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. A verbal change is not an instruction.

An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. Nothing leaves the bench longer than the way in allows.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. 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. The roof space above carries services, so a boiler flue or a soil vent can drop into a corner of the kitchen and stay exactly there. Where a full length can come down the side and in at the back, the nest follows the slab instead of the building. What leaves the bench is what fits the room.

The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. These kitchens have usually been retiled twice and knocked through once, and both of those leave marks the worktop has to deal with. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. Every piece is numbered to the wall it belongs against.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. Power and waste come up through the floor, and where they surface decides which cabinet can hold a sink and which one cannot. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Cut-outs are machined with the piece bedded down.