Worktop installation in Feltham

Yes. Feltham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW13, TW14. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hounslow. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. 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. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The kitchen sits at the rear with a door to the garden and a window over the sink, so the useful run is broken into two short lengths. 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. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads.

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 fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. 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. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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 junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Emptying the room belongs to the keyholder, not the crew.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Access is checked against the longest piece first.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. 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. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.