Worktop installation in Maze Hill

Yes. Maze Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE10, SE3. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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 crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The combination boiler hangs on whichever wall happened to be external, and that decision has already used up a stretch of the only wall the run wanted. The day is planned backwards from the hall. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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.

Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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 carry length sets the number of hands on the job.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. 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 is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Offered up twice, bonded once. 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. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A cleared crew arrives with its paperwork done.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Every piece is staged to it before fitting starts.

Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. The front door of the building sits at the top of a step off a tiled path, so the carry starts outside the building rather than at the door of the flat. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.

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. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.

Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Scribed one piece at a time.