Worktop fabrication in Eltham

Yes. Eltham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE9. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The van is packed to suit the walk at the other end. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

There is a solid base under the old scullery end and suspended timber where the addition meets the house, and the two part company along that joint. The galley run down a side-return usually measures longer than a slab will give us, so a join is designed in from the start and nested to land over a cabinet gable rather than wherever the material happens to run out. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out. 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. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Yield drops the moment the back edge stops being straight.

Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. Nothing leaves the bench longer than the way in allows. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. A timed unload is planned into the rack before it leaves.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. The annexe top comes off the main kitchen slab.

On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. 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. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. Left and right alcove pieces are marked and stay marked. The sink and hob need to be on site and the run layout fixed before we start cutting, because moving a hob after the join position is set means recutting the whole piece. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. Cut once, to the sheet that came back signed.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A cast iron soil stack runs down the outside of the rear wall, so moving the sink means a fresh penetration through solid brick. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. Slab yield falls when the runs stop being straight.

Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Repeat pieces are cut from one drawing set, so what arrives on the bench is the same every time. Small kitchens are more bench work per square metre.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. A remake is the price of guessing that measurement.

The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Cut-outs are machined with the piece bedded down.