Worktop fabrication in Imperial Wharf

Yes. Imperial Wharf is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. We pack for the tail lift we are actually going to use. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

These flats are built with a floating floor over a concrete slab for acoustic reasons, and it deflects slightly under the weight of a stone island. Piece size is set by the lift car, not by the slab. Lath and plaster is cut for, never cut into. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. The piece is nested around the scribe, not despite it.

Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. Crates are sized to clear the same openings the stone does. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. A long walk from the van earns heavier corner protection.

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. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Spares crated with the batch and labelled by unit. A specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Same slab run, or it is not a match.

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. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Every piece is labelled to its place in the run. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Nothing leaves the bench expecting a square wall. 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. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. An agent forwarding a drawing is not approving it.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The lift car, the loading bay and the building manager decide the piece sizes here, not the slab. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. The offcut is planned before the main piece is cut.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. A balcony door is the only other opening in the flat and it leads nowhere useful, so everything comes in through the front door. 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 piece is made for the room the builders left.

Nothing is payable in advance of the template. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Developer carcasses are thin cam-lock chipboard, which is entirely adequate under laminate and wants bracing before stone. Pieces are cut, mitred, machined and dry-assembled on the bench before anything is loaded onto a van. Two slabs get sequenced when one will not cover the run.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Short pieces cost bench time, not slab area.