Worktop installation in Kingston Hill

Yes. Kingston Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT2. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Original joinery is deep and stands proud of the plaster, so the run is plotted to the units rather than to the wall behind them. Access through the property is usually the simplest of any archetype, with wide doors and generous rooms, so we can often carry a full-length piece straight in without a planned join. Fixings go into what the wall actually is. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. 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. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. That family has lived on a building site long enough. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there.

A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. 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. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A cleared crew arrives with its paperwork done.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads.

Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. The kitchen is a rear service room with a scullery and a larder off it, and both have usually survived as separate spaces. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Two people will walk a two-metre piece in through a front door; the same hall with a three-metre piece wants four, purely because nobody can let go halfway. 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 alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Lime plaster on nine inch brick has been patched with gypsum wherever a radiator or a socket has moved, and the two finish at different depths. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Overhangs get brackets before anyone leans on them.