Worktop installation in Fullwell Cross

Yes. Fullwell Cross is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. The carry is the constraint. The slow parts are slow for a reason. For anything above ground floor here we measure the stair turn first, a 3m piece will not make the bend, so we plan a joint rather than find out on delivery day.

Residential roads are fine and most houses have a drive, but the maisonettes above and behind the parade mean a straight-flight staircase carry with a half-landing turn that limits what length we can get up in one piece. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. One visit, done properly. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. 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. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.