Worktop installation in Knight's Hill

Yes. Knight's Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE27. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Wider halls make the carry noticeably easier, and that alone can remove a join that a narrower terrace would have forced into the run. The day is planned backwards from the hall. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. That family has lived on a building site long enough. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. 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.

It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. 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.

A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Keys confirmed the week before, not the morning of.

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. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. 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. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.

Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Ceilings are generous and the rooms are narrow, so the runs are long, the aisle is tight and there is nowhere to stand a slab on edge. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. A bad floor is corrected under the carcass, never with sealant.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. The original larder or store cupboard usually survives in a corner, and that alcove is deeper than the units and squarer than the walls around it. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.