Worktop fabrication in Hammersmith

Yes. Hammersmith is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of the borough. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. Two trips off the van means two chances to catch a corner. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The boiler has usually been moved out of the main house into the addition, and its flue, its pipework and its condensate all cross the wall the run wants. The galley run down a side-return usually measures longer than a slab will give us, so a join is designed in from the start and nested to land over a cabinet gable rather than wherever the material happens to run out. The saw follows the template, never the plan. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Cut oversize on purpose, every time.

Where the staircase comes down into the hall the bottom treads project into the width, and nothing about that can be moved for the day. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing states a maximum length and the shop honours it. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Packing takes its cue from the distance to the door.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. The batch is checked against itself before it leaves. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Ten metres of upstand out of what the tops left.

A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Apron mitres are bonded and polished before dispatch. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The relief comes out of the slab, not the fitter. The sink and hob need to be on site and the run layout fixed before we start cutting, because moving a hob after the join position is set means recutting the whole piece. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. The signature on the drawing carries the cost of it.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The side return was an outside toilet and a coal store before it was ever a kitchen, and the walls left over from that are half a brick thick. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. Cut-outs are set out from the units, not the appliance box.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. 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. 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. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Geometry first, then the saw.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Party wall settlement pulls the floor down at one side of the room, so a long run reads level at one end and not at the other. Pieces are cut, mitred, machined and dry-assembled on the bench before anything is loaded onto a van. Drainer grooves are machined flat, on a bed, never on site.

The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Seams land over gables, never over a void.