Worktop installation in Elm Park

Yes. Elm Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM12. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

Runs are short enough that a single slab covers the whole kitchen, which makes the material choice the main lever on the total. 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. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see.

Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. 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 last trade in inherits every delay before it. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. 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. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Nothing bears on plasterboard. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Scheme rules on working hours are checked first.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Internal walls are hollow clay block or stud rather than solid brick, so two points a metre apart on the same wall want two different fixings. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. The whole run is dry-fitted before any adhesive is opened.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Nothing changes hands until after the template. A serving hatch through to the dining room is common, and closing one up leaves a panel of newer wall exactly where the run passes. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. Dust extraction indoors, or the cut happens outside.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. 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 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. It sets the crew: two fitters where the route is straightforward, four where it is not. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside.