Worktop installation in Greenwich Peninsula

Yes. Greenwich Peninsula is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE10. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. These read as easy from outside and rarely are, because the flat entrance is tighter than the goods lift. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. Measure the service lift diagonal first, a 3m piece that won't stand up in the car has to be jointed, and that joint has to land somewhere defensible.

Everything goes through a loading bay and a goods lift on a booked slot, with floor and lift protection and a concierge who wants notice; the lift car dimension, not the front door, decides maximum slab length. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. 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.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. Confirm loading bay access and lift booking with the building's management, and clear any furniture from the mezzanine stairs or split-level approach. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. 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.