Worktop installation in Grove Park

Yes. Grove Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE12. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. On a drive that only takes one vehicle nose-in, the van has to reverse the whole length of it to get back out, which decides which way it goes in. 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. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The kitchen sits at the rear with a door to the garden and a window over the sink, so the useful run is broken into two short lengths. 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. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of 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. Handover day is a hard stop. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. 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 runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. 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. Booked around the tenant, not around the owner.

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. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. These were built in short runs of six or eight houses, so the party walls are solid brick and the rear elevation is a straight line with no outriggers. A run crossing from the original room into the extension is packed to one plane before the stone is offered up. The shell has the last word on fitting day.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The rear extension is usually the newest and truest part of the building, so it is the older half of the kitchen that gives the trouble. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. The room is swept and the offcuts leave with us.

The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.