Worktop installation in Kensington

Yes. Kensington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W8. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of the borough. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

A basement is often reached by its own door under the front steps, and that door is smaller than anything else on the route. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Levelled first, then set, then sealed. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

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. 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. 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. 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. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Access is checked against the longest piece first. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. The signature at the end belongs to somebody with authority.

A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. 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. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Dry-lay first, always.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Georgian houses put the kitchen in a basement or a rear closet wing, and the stairs down to it are the tightest part of the whole route. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Carried once, and carried properly.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. It is the slow part of the day and it should be.