Worktop installation in Lower Morden

Yes. Lower Morden is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM4. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Merton. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The original kitchen was a working room with a scullery and a pantry off it, so what is now one space was two or three with brick walls between them. 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. Fixings go into what the wall actually is. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads.

Two people will walk a two-metre piece in through a front door; the same hall with a three-metre piece wants four, purely because nobody can let go halfway. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A missing sink stops eight kitchens, not one. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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.

The short run at the head of a U usually sits under a window, so that piece is scribed on three sides at once and has nowhere left to be pushed back to. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The laying order follows the shape. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A rolling programme loses a flat to one missing key.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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 piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. The front door is often the cheapest hundred millimetres on the route, because a door lifted off its hinges gives back the width its own thickness was taking. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. A piece is stood on end only where there is room to turn it.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. Nothing changes hands until after the template. A shallow bay or a squared-off rear window means the run beneath it is rarely the same depth at both ends. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Levelled under the units first.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. An inward-opening door swinging back against the wall leaves less clear opening than the frame measures, and a storm porch in front of it is tighter again. It sets the crew: two fitters where the route is straightforward, four where it is not. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame.