Worktop installation in Kentish Town

Yes. Kentish Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW5. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. 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. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Ceilings in the addition are lower than in the front rooms, so the band of wall between the worktop and the wall units is shorter than the rest of the house suggests. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Fixings go into what the wall actually is. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. 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. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. That family has lived on a building site long enough.

Rooflights along a side return mean the worktop is lit from directly above all day, which shows every ripple in a surface and every gap at a scribe. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. 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. 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 fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The signature at the end belongs to somebody with authority.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. A permit covering the street is permission to park rather than a space reserved on it, and on a full street the difference is the whole morning. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. 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.

Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Bi-fold or sliding doors at the end of the return mean the run finishes against a frame rather than a wall, and a frame gives nothing to scribe into and no movement to take up. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone.