Worktop installation in Kingston upon Thames

Yes. Kingston upon Thames is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT1, KT2. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of the borough. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. 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. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Kitchens in these were fitted as a package to a repeating plan, so the carcasses are identical from flat to flat and so are their faults. 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. The building moved decades ago and the fit allows for it. Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Nothing bears on plasterboard.

Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop replacement comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. 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.

Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. 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. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. No money is taken before the template happens. Underfloor heating in a screed rules out fixing into the floor and rules out standing anything heavy on a single point. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Whether the stone can stand on end in the car is the first question, because a lift that takes 2.1m upright takes nothing like that lying flat. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. An unsupported overhang off a stud wall wants noggins fixed between the studs before the boarding goes on, and once it is boarded and skimmed that option has gone. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.