Worktop installation in Fulwell

Yes. Fulwell is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW2, TW11. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. A gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre in. 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. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The pantry was a half-brick enclosure in the corner of the room, and where it has been taken out the wall behind it is made good brickwork rather than original plaster. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after. Overhanging branches clear the roof of a car and catch the roof of a van, so the drive is looked at from the driver seat rather than from the doorstep. 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 clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Handover day is a hard stop.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A corner that will not close is never forced. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One person is responsible for the door that morning.

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. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. The scullery floor was quarry tile bedded on concrete and it is often still under a laminate, sitting lower than the boards in the room it now joins. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The original plan put a larder and a back door on the same wall, and both leave awkward stubs once the room is opened up. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Dust extraction indoors, or the cut happens outside.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. A shallow bay or a squared-off rear window means the run beneath it is rarely the same depth at both ends. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. The room is swept and the offcuts leave with us.