Worktop installation in Farringdon

Yes. Farringdon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC1. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Islington. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. 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. The day is built around that window. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Many of these kitchens are a fitted pod dropped into open floor, so three sides are free and only the fourth is ever scribed. These read as easy from the outside and rarely are. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. A brick pier standing into the run divides it in two, and the join goes against the pier where a clear wall would have needed no join at all. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

A car will often hold more than its doors will admit, and it is the clear width between the door edges that a piece actually has to pass through. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. 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 ask than guess.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop fabrication 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. 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. 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. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.

Some of them overhang on two sides at once, and each side is worked out separately, because the load on an edge people lean against is not the load on an edge people walk past. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Waterfall legs are set before the top is bonded down. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Where the structure cannot be cut into, the stone is relieved instead, and a relief that deep changes both the yield off the slab and how the piece is handled. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. Confirm loading bay access and lift booking with the building's management, and clear any furniture from the mezzanine stairs or split-level approach. A landlord with several similar flats usually wants one specification repeated, so the material, the edge detail and the upstand height are recorded and reused rather than rechosen each time. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Emptying the room belongs to the keyholder, not the crew.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Original brickwork is uneven by ten millimetres or more across a bay, so the back edge is scribed to the actual face rather than to a line. These read as easy from outside and rarely are, because the flat entrance is tighter than the goods lift. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.

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. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Once a long piece is in on the diagonal there is no room left for anyone else, so it travels up alone and is met on the landing above. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. A piece is stood on end only where there is room to turn it.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. An intruding steel column, a brick pier or a downstand breaks a run that would otherwise have been one clean piece. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. The full route is walked with a tape before anything is unloaded, including the turn at the flat door. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.