Worktop installation in Eel Pie Island

Yes. Eel Pie Island is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW1. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Edwardian terraces are wider and taller than the Victorian houses next to them, so the kitchen usually takes a full-width rear room rather than a narrow outrigger. The day is planned backwards from the hall, and the scribing takes longer than the carry. That is the shape of the day. No van gets on the island, so pieces are sized to be carried over the footbridge by two people, which usually means 1.5m maximum and more joints than you would normally accept.

There is no vehicle access at all - everything crosses the humpbacked footbridge and then goes along narrow paths, usually on a sack barrow or by hand, and the island floods on high spring tides. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop fabrication. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. 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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Protection goes down first.