Worktop fabrication in Imperial Wharf

Yes. Imperial Wharf is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW6. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. The load plan follows from it. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Floor-to-ceiling glazing lights the worktop from one side all day, which shows every ripple in a polished surface and every gap at a scribe. We work to the internal depth of the car and the diagonal you can actually stand a piece up on with the doors closed, then nest to that, which routinely turns a two-piece kitchen into a three-piece one with an extra join over a gable. The bench proves it before the van moves. Sintered stone and thin porcelain are the usual upgrade here, and those need a rigid transport frame and a full set of suction lifters - they do not forgive being flexed on a long corridor carry.

Gated estate with a security barrier, contractor registration, a designated loading bay and a goods lift that must be booked and lined before use, plus estate rules on working hours. From the lift lobby the route to the flat is a long carpeted corridor across a podium, so floor protection is mandatory and the trolley run is significant. Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. It is settled on the bench, not on site. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Nested for the job in front of us. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Nested for the job in front of us.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Machined to the real line. Sink, tap and hob need to be with us before machining, along with confirmation of whether the island is getting a breakfast overhang, since anything past roughly 300mm unsupported needs steel let into the carcasses and that has to be built in, not added later. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. Dry-assembled before it leaves.