Worktop installation 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. 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. 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 parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

These were built on a solid ground floor slab, so nothing bounces and nothing can be packed down, only up. Access is generally through the front door and a short straight hall into the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than a Victorian terrace, though rear access through a back garden or shared path is often the better route if it exists. Old floors get packed, not argued with. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall.

Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after. 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. 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. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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.

Three runs is three scribes and three separate lifts, so a U takes longer on site than its metreage suggests even on a day when nothing goes wrong. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded. Unlock any rear or shared path gate and clear both the hall and the back approach so we can choose the better route on the day. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. 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.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. 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. A boiler in a cupboard on the kitchen wall is normal in this stock, and its position is fixed by its flue. The fitting itself is about squaring up to walls that look modern and are not: block or breeze walls with a skim that has been patched over decades, so we still dry-lay and scribe rather than trust the template edge. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Ceiling heights dropped after the war, so there is less wall between the worktop and the wall units than in anything older. The units are checked for depth and for fixing back before a top goes on, since a deeper piece needs support at the front. Fixings go into what the wall actually is.

Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. A stub wall divides the kitchen from the back lobby, and it rarely stayed where the original drawing put it. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Levelled under the units first.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.