Worktop installation in Fortis Green

Yes. Fortis Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N10, N2. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Fixings go into what the wall actually is. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

A step up off the pavement means the piece is lifted to the threshold before it is carried anywhere, and that first lift is the one that wants four hands. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The day is built around that window.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop replacement comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. 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. 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. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. One datum for every run in the room. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

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. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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. Communal floors are protected the same as private ones.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. A Victorian hall arch sits lower than the ceiling either side of it, and it is the point a piece carried on edge meets first. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. We would rather ask than guess.

Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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.