Worktop installation in Higham Hill

Yes. Higham Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E17. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Waltham Forest. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Plaster in the older half is a sand and cement backing on brick while the newer half is board on dabs, so the same fixing bites in one wall and breaks through the other. 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. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

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. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A corner that will not close is never forced. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Notice periods decide the date more often than the workshop.

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. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The scullery and the kitchen were knocked into one at some point, and the stub of the old dividing wall is still there under the plaster. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. One visit, our own installers.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The drains run down the side alley to a gully and an inspection cover near the back door, and the sink waste has always gone out on that side of the house. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid.