Worktop installation in Kenley

Yes. Kenley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR8. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. 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 van does not stay on a main road once it is empty. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Everything on one level means no stairs, no landings and no turns, which is about the easiest carry there is in domestic work. 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. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

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. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. That family has lived on a building site long enough.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The return is offered up last. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A cleared crew arrives with its paperwork done.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. The chimney breast in the kitchen once took a copper or a back boiler, and whatever is left of it is rarely square to the rest of the room. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The route is walked before the first lift.

Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. Fitting is booked as a run of consecutive days rather than as separate visits, which is what makes several kitchens in one building workable. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there.

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 tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A mitred corner is cut and dressed as a matched pair, and if either leg shifts by a millimetre on site the joint opens along its whole length rather than at one end. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Bungalow kitchens are frequently extended into the rear or opened into the roof space, so the room is part original and part new build. 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. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.