Worktop installation in Neasden

Yes. Neasden is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW10, NW2. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. 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. The first hand off the van is the one holding the clock. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The back door frequently opens straight into the kitchen, which is the best carry route in the house and the one people forget to mention. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw.

A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. None of it is worked out on the doorstep. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Back-to-back slots need every flat ready on the first day. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Scribed one piece at a time. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. 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. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. A rolling programme loses a flat to one missing key.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. One datum for every run in the room.

The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. Nothing is payable in advance of the template. The extension slab was poured to its own level, so there is a lip or a ramp where the new floor meets the original one. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Levelled under the units first.

Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. 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. Support goes in before stone does, so whatever steel, plywood or extra noggin the shape calls for is fitted while the room is still empty. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. Original quarry-tiled floors sit lower than a later screed, so a run crossing that junction needs the units packed to one level. 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. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints.