Worktop installation in Finchley Central

Yes. Finchley Central is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N3. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The rear wall now carries french or folding doors across most of its width, so a whole side of the room opens and a long piece comes straight in off the garden. 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. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Nothing bears on plasterboard.

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. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip. 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. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. 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. 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 work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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.

The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Access is checked against the longest piece first. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. 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.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The room is wide enough that an island turns up in nearly every scheme, and how far the drainage can be taken is what fixes where it sits. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Dry-lay first, always.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. The boiler has usually been moved out to the garage or the utility, leaving a capped flue and a run of dead pipework in the kitchen wall. A run crossing from the original room into the extension is packed to one plane before the stone is offered up. The house sets the order of work.