Worktop installation in Hornsey

Yes. Hornsey is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N8. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Kitchens in the upper flats often sit in the return wing at half-landing level, so there are three or four steps inside the flat before the room is reached at all. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Offered up twice, bonded once.

Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop replacement ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Sealed before we leave.

Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Sealant seals. It does not fit. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One person is responsible for the door that morning.

A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. Lift doors close on a timer that takes no account of somebody holding a worktop, so a pair of hands stays on the buttons at each end. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. The partitions put in at conversion are studwork standing on the old floor, so they take a fixing well but carry nothing, and a heavy end panel needs a different answer. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly.

What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A car will often hold more than its doors will admit, and it is the clear width between the door edges that a piece actually has to pass through. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Access is checked against the longest piece first.