Worktop installation in Loughborough Junction

Yes. Loughborough Junction is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE5, SW9. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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 booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The original fitted dresser and the vent to outside air have often left their openings behind the units, unfilled and unrecorded. This is the most managed day we do. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. It is the slow part of the day and it should be.

A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. 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. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

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. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A missing sink stops eight kitchens, not one. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Back-to-back slots need every flat ready on the first day.

On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Offered up twice, bonded once. Have the works booking confirmed with the managing agent or porter in advance, with the lift slot and any parking permit or bay suspension in place. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access rules can differ from one door to the next.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Sealant seals. It does not fit.

Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The piece is offered up, marked, taken back out and cut, and that cycle can run twice before anything is bonded down. The awkward metre takes the longest.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.