Worktop installation in Munster Village

Yes. Munster Village is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. 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. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

There is no back addition on these, so the kitchen is the original rear room and the run is one wall long with a door at each end of it. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. The slow parts are slow for a reason. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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.

Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Every piece is staged to it before fitting starts. 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. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop replacement comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. 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. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

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. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. 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.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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.

Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves.