Worktop installation in Hackney Downs

Yes. Hackney Downs is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E5, E8. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. Where the nearest legal space is a couple of streets back, the walk with each piece becomes the job, and the crew is sized for walking rather than wheeling. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The flat below hears the floor more than the walls, so lifting boards to move a waste run is a conversation with a neighbour before it is a morning of work. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Back-to-back slots need every flat ready on the first day. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The return is offered up last. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A void between tenancies has no spare days in it.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Access, floor and wall in that order, then stone.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. 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.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads.