Worktop installation in Harold Park

Yes. Harold Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Everything on one level means no stairs, no landings and no turns, which is about the easiest carry there is in domestic work. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced.

A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. 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. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. 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. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Keys confirmed the week before, not the morning of.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. The plaster is a thick float and set over brick that has blown in patches, so a wall sounds solid in one place and hollow a hand-span away. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The room is swept and the offcuts leave with us.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Offered up twice, bonded once.

What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. Bungalow kitchens are frequently extended into the rear or opened into the roof space, so the room is part original and part new build. A run crossing from the original room into the extension is packed to one plane before the stone is offered up. The shell has the last word on fitting day.