Worktop installation in Little Heath

Yes. Little Heath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM6, IG3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. 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. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced.

A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. 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. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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 aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. 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. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. 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. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Owner or agent, somebody has to be reachable.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Rear extensions on these sit on shallow foundations, and the crack at the junction with the original wall tells you which way it has moved. 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.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. The window over the sink sits at about worktop height, so the run is set out around the sill and the reveal rather than under them. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Levelled under the units first.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. The first hand off the van is the one holding the clock.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Support first, stone second.