Worktop installation in Maida Vale

Yes. Maida Vale is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W9. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The lift is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a turn at every half-landing. The porter has to be booked, the goods lift protected with the block's own blankets or our own boards, and communal carpet and stair runners covered from the entrance to the flat door before a single piece moves. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. Original mansion-block lifts take a person and a toolbox, not a slab - assume everything goes up the stairs and price the labour accordingly.

The blocks are portered and run formal house rules - weekday works hours only, no noisy work before 9am or after 5pm, mandatory lift and floor protection, and often a rear service entrance you must use instead of the main hall. The original passenger lifts are small cars with folding gates. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first.