Worktop installation in Lower Clapton

Yes. Lower Clapton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E5. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. 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. 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. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Cornice runs round the head of the wall, so the wall units stop under it and the splashback band is trapped between two things that are not going to move. 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. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Sealant seals. It does not fit.

Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it. A shared-use bay allows a paid stay up to a set maximum, and that maximum is routinely shorter than the working day the job needs. 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. The clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The building keeps working around us. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A slipped slot takes the next one with it.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The awkward metre takes the longest. 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. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. 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.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. The join is polished flat before we call it done.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. The chimney breast is usually still standing with the opening blocked up, and the alcoves either side of it are rarely the same width as each other. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor.