Worktop installation in Furzedown

Yes. Furzedown is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW17, SW16. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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 spotter on the van is a man off the tools. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. 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. The building moved decades ago and the fit allows for it. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Nothing bears on plasterboard.

A pendant light hanging in the middle of a hall ceiling sets the angle a piece can be tilted to, and it is the measurement nobody thinks to take. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication and worktop replacement. 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. 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 work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Handover day is a hard stop.

Three runs means two internal corners, and each corner is a decision about mitre or butt joint before anything is nested. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The step between rooms is packed out first. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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. One person is responsible for the door that morning.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. A U shape uses more linear metres than people expect, and the two returns rarely nest together, so a second slab is a genuine possibility. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Nothing is cut on site if the bench can do it.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. 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. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for.

Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day.