Worktop installation in Hendon

Yes. Hendon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW4. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. 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. 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. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

These kitchens are full of boxed soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing usually stops short of the ceiling. This is the most managed day we do. Carried once, and carried properly. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

Spindles and a newel cap stand proud of the string, so the usable width on a turn is measured to the handrail rather than to the wall behind it. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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 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. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. 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. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.

A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. 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. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see. Have the works booking confirmed with the managing agent or porter in advance, with the lift slot and any parking permit or bay suspension in place. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Scheme rules on working hours are checked first.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. 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. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Permitted works hours are commonly weekdays with a late start and an early finish, so a one-day fit is planned around the porter and the lift. The finish time is set by the block rather than by the work, so the sequence is planned to end early rather than to run late. Old floors get packed, not argued with.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The kitchen was a service room at the back of the flat, so it is a long way from the front door along a corridor with two turns in it. The lift is boarded and blanketed before the first piece leaves the van, and the porter is told the sequence. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them.