Worktop fabrication in Hayes

Yes. Hayes is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR2. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The crate spec follows the length of the carry. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The kitchen is at the front or the back depending on the plan, and which it is decides whether there is a rear door on the route at all. These have a back door straight into the kitchen so getting pieces in is rarely the issue, but the room is small and the runs are short, which puts the sink, hob and tap cut-outs close together on a single length of stone. The fall across the floor is in the cut list. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Upstands leave the bench in lengths, not as one run.

A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. Nesting follows the route, not the other way round. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. We pack for the tail lift we are actually going to use.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. 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. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Spares crated with the batch and labelled by unit. 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. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Same slab run, or it is not a match.

A U shape uses more linear metres than people expect, and the two returns rarely nest together, so a second slab is a genuine possibility. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. A recut loses the sequence for good. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Radius first, polish second, joins nowhere near. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The approved drawing is the instruction.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. 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. Repeat pieces are cut from one drawing set, so what arrives on the bench is the same every time. Proven on the bench before dispatch.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. With three walls in play the chance of one of them being out of square is high, and the template has to carry all three angles. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Every piece is labelled to its place in the run.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. These were built on a solid ground floor slab, so nothing bounces and nothing can be packed down, only up. 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. What the wall does is on the drawing before the saw runs.

Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. The advantage of a U is that every join can be put over a gable in a corner, so nothing lands in the middle of a clear length. Every piece is drawn onto the slab before anything is cut, so the veining and the join positions are decided together rather than one after the other. Short pieces cost bench time, not slab area.