Worktop installation in King's Cross

Yes. King's Cross is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N1C, N1, NW1. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Rooflights over the rear bring light straight down onto the worktop, which shows a polished finish and any step at a join. Everything comes up in the lift, so we measure the lift car's internal diagonal before the piece is loaded, because a car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a 3m worktop no matter how you stand it. Settlement is packed out, never levered out. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

A car that answers every floor button pressed while a piece is standing in it needs to be held on the key, and the key usually lives at a desk that wants notice. 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. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract.

A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. Book the service lift and loading bay with the building manager for the whole fitting window, and have the fob or key for lift override ready. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. 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.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. 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. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

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. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. It sets the crew: two fitters where the route is straightforward, four where it is not. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted.