Worktop installation in Hampton

Yes. Hampton 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. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The party wall is the straightest surface in the house and everything else has moved away from it over a century. 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. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. 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. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. 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. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house.

On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is cut on site if the bench can do it. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. 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. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. 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.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. 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. No payment is due before the template. The rear wall of the addition carries both the back door and the window, which leaves very little unbroken wall for a run to sit against. 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.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. These were built with a scullery that has since been swallowed by an extension, leaving a change of floor level roughly where the run crosses. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. A structure this old is worked with, not corrected.

Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence.