Worktop fabrication in Hampton Hill

Yes. Hampton Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW12. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A flat over a shop is reached by a separate street door and a straight steep stair, and that stair is the whole access question. The bench work is about keeping enough solid material between them - a hob cut-out too near a sink cut-out leaves a narrow bridge that will not survive being lifted, so we either move the appliance positions on the template or split the run and put a join over a gable between the two cut-outs. Settled on the drawing, cut once. Flats above the shops have a stair with a tight top landing, so anything over 2.4m has to be jointed - measure the landing, not just the stair width.

High Street loading is timed and the parade is busy, so flats above shops mean a street door, a straight steep stair and a right-angle turn at the top; the residential roads behind have driveways and are far easier. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. 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. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Proven on the bench before dispatch. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Nested for the job in front of us.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. The drawing decides it, not the fitter. Final appliance positions and the actual sink and hob need to be settled before machining, because on a run this short a few centimetres of movement decides whether the piece can be cut in one. 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. Dry-assembled before it leaves.