Worktop installation in Friday Hill

Yes. Friday Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E4. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Waltham Forest. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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.

A service duct runs between the kitchen and the bathroom stacked above it, and access to that duct stays open whatever the layout does. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. A structure this old is worked with, not corrected. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment.

Open-tread and cantilevered stairs give nothing to lean a piece against, so the whole weight stays on the crew for the full length of the flight. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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. The day is built around that window.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.

A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. 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 is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Where the provider has set the specification the material choice was made once for a great many kitchens, and the useful work is meeting it exactly rather than proposing something else on the day. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The slot belongs to whoever can open the door.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. We would rather ask than guess.

Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The external wall is a concrete panel with a modest window, so the run under it sits in a shallow reveal with a hard cill. Fixings into concrete go in with proper anchors, and the dust is contained rather than swept up afterwards. The tops go on level even when nothing else is.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Windows sit in deep concrete reveals with a cast sill, and that reveal is usually the least square thing in the room. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. The whole run is dry-fitted before any adhesive is opened.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. A handrail that has to come off before a piece will pass is twenty minutes at the start of the day, and it goes back on the wall before we leave. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.