Worktop fabrication in Isle of Dogs

Yes. Isle of Dogs is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E14. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. It is worth checking on the peninsula whether the address is a 1980s house or a modern tower, because they are completely different access jobs at the same postcode.

The peninsula has limited road access with congestion at the north end, and the internal roads are heavily bollarded around the docks, so routes are longer than they look. Older low-rise dockside houses have narrow front doors and a stair immediately behind them, while the towers need concierge-booked lifts. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Proven on the bench before dispatch. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Nested for the job in front of us.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Every join sits over a gable. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Sink and hob are dry-fitted on the bench before dispatch, whoever supplied them. The approved drawing is the instruction.