Worktop installation in Harold Wood

Yes. Harold Wood 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. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The classic arrangement is the original back room with a later extension bolted onto it, so the kitchen is two ages of building in one room. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.

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. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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, one of the three we see most, with worktop replacement ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. 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. 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.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. 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.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. A side alley and a back door mean most pieces go in whole, and it is the alley width rather than the front door that decides it. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. The shell has the last word on fitting day.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. 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.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.