Worktop fabrication in Fitzrovia

Yes. Fitzrovia is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W1T, W1W. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Where a loading concession applies at all, it holds only while something is being carried, which makes it a way to unload rather than a way to park. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. That is the last thing settled before dispatch. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

The structure below is commercial, so the floor is often timber over a shop ceiling and the load path under an island is worth thinking about. The bench work is about keeping enough solid material between them - a hob cut-out too near a sink cut-out leaves a narrow bridge that will not survive being lifted, so we either move the appliance positions on the template or split the run and put a join over a gable between the two cut-outs. Settled on the drawing, cut once. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Machined to the real line.

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. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. Load order is set by the order the pieces will be carried. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Loaded for the carry, not for the van.

Often enough. It is one of the three, behind worktop installation. The template, the workshop and the installers are the same either way. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Small kitchens are more bench work per square metre. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Cut for the slot, because the slot will not move.

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. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. The saw follows the nest, not the floor plan. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Cut oversize on purpose, every time. Final appliance positions and the actual sink and hob need to be settled before machining, because on a run this short a few centimetres of movement decides whether the piece can be cut in one. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. One batch wherever the specification repeats.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. The relief comes out of the slab, not the fitter.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Book-matched pieces are cut adjacent or not at all.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Working hours are constrained by the business underneath, so noisy work has a window rather than a day. On a short run the stone left between the sink and hob cut-outs is what decides whether it can be cut in one. The bench proves it before the van moves.

A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. 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. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. 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. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. A lift diagonal is a workshop dimension as much as a site one.