Worktop installation in Latchmere

Yes. Latchmere is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW11. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. 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. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

That rear wall carries the back door and the only window, which leaves very little uninterrupted length for a sink run. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The age of the house sets the pace of it. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced.

Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. 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.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. 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. That family has lived on a building site long enough. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there.

The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. 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.

Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. 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. Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. 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 managing agent books the lift, not the household.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Offered up twice, bonded once.

How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Fitting is booked as a run of consecutive days rather than as separate visits, which is what makes several kitchens in one building workable. A missing sink stops eight kitchens, not one.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. A resident bay and a shared-use bay can sit on the same street under different rules, and it is usually the shared one a visitor permit or a ticket touches. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. The clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Many have had the ground floor chimney breast removed to gain three hundred millimetres, and the gained strip is newer blockwork standing proud of the old plaster. 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. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.