Worktop installation in Hampton Wick

Yes. Hampton Wick is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT1. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. The kerb decides the start time. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

A small room puts the sink, hob and tap cut-outs close together on one short length, and the bridge of stone left between them decides whether it can be cut in one piece. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. What the building will take decides how it is fixed. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment.

A hall that widens further in is still only as good as its tightest point, and that point is usually within a metre of the front door. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Van to door is the distance that matters.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house.

Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads. 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. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. 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.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. There is no back addition on these, so the kitchen is the original rear room and the run is one wall long with a door at each end of it. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. The age of the house sets the pace of it.

Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. A cast iron soil stack runs down the outside of the rear wall, so moving the sink means a fresh penetration through solid brick. 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.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat.