Worktop installation in Forest Gate

Yes. Forest Gate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E7. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. 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. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The lean-to roof drains into a valley gutter against the addition next door, and a long leak there shows at the head of the kitchen wall rather than on the ceiling. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Levelled first, then set, then sealed. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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 side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. 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. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. 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 spotter on the van is a man off the tools.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.

An island carries its own edge detail all the way round, so a mitred 100mm apron on four sides is four mitres cut, bonded and polished before the piece ever leaves the bench. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The step between rooms is packed out first. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Communal floors are protected the same as private ones.

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 units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Older buildings get the extra hour.

Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. 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. Fitting is booked as a run of consecutive days rather than as separate visits, which is what makes several kitchens in one building workable. Handover day is a hard stop.