Kitchen worktops in Heston

Yes. Extensively extended semis and detached houses with large open kitchens, a big island, two sinks and frequently a separate rear prep kitchen kept for heavy cooking so the main kitchen stays presentable. 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. 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. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days.

1930s semi, postwar detached, heavily extended family house and recent detached infill. The kitchen sits on the far side of the hall from the front door, so even with easy access outside there is still a turn to make inside. 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. What the building will take decides how it is fixed.

Wide roads, driveways almost universal, and the A4 with M4 Junction 3 on the doorstep. The only obstacle is that the drives are usually full of cars. 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. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. A lift diagonal is a workshop dimension as much as a site one.

Worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. Where an annexe has been built or converted, its floor and its walls are newer than the main house and behave differently under the same run. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Repeat runs come off a jig, not a fresh setout. The second prep kitchen is a genuine spec here, so price two templates and expect two different materials rather than one continuous order.

The offcut taken out of the middle for a hob is a large usable piece, and it is worth deciding early whether it becomes an upstand or goes in the skip. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. A square internal corner is a crack waiting. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. These were built with a separate dining room, and most have had the wall between it and the kitchen taken out with a steel put in above. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. The age of the house sets the pace of it.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. 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. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Oversize on the scribe edge, always.

The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. Thinner material is specified where the carry demands it.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. The workshop cuts to that constraint, so a piece leaves the bench already sized to reach where it is going. A join added for access is placed over a gable, never mid-span.