Worktop installation in Lessness Heath

Yes. Lessness Heath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA17. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The extension is commonly a flat-roofed addition of the seventies or eighties with a shallower floor build-up, so the two halves of the room do not sit at one level. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Settlement is packed out, never levered out. 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. 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.

Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait.

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 new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A missing sink stops eight kitchens, not one.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by 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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Owner or agent, somebody has to be reachable.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. 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. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw.

What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Rear windows are wide and low with a deep tiled cill, and that cill decides how tall the upstand behind the sink can be. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. A serving hatch through to the dining room is common, and closing one up leaves a panel of newer wall exactly where the run passes. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Sink and hob seated and sealed before we go.

The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Back-to-back slots need every flat ready on the first day.