Worktop fabrication in Marks Gate

Yes. Marks Gate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls are dense block or in-situ concrete with a bonded plaster, so the bottom course of tiles brings plaster with it when the old top comes off. The notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius, because a square internal corner there is where a top fails. Settled on the drawing, cut once. The estate is small and repetitive, so once we have templated one of each house type we know the room, but every single one still gets checked for the boiler position.

Self-contained estate with parking courts, garage blocks and pedestrian paths between the blocks; the A12 means there is one way in and out, so timing around traffic matters. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Proven on the bench before dispatch. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Nested for the job in front of us.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. The bench proves it before the van does. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The drawing decides it, not the fitter. The stack boxing needs to be in its final form and the sink and hob on site before we machine, since a boxing that gets re-clad afterwards throws the notch out. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The approved drawing is the instruction.