Worktop installation in New Addington

Yes. New Addington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

A boiler in a cupboard on the kitchen wall is normal in this stock, and its position is fixed by its flue. Access is generally through the front door and a short straight hall into the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than a Victorian terrace, though rear access through a back garden or shared path is often the better route if it exists. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Offered up twice, bonded once.

A communal flight is out of use while a piece is on it, so the carry is timed so nobody is trying to pass on a half-landing. 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. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than 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. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. 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. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The void ends whether we have finished or not.

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. Scribed one piece at a time. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Sealant seals. It does not fit. Unlock any rear or shared path gate and clear both the hall and the back approach so we can choose the better route on the day. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. 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.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Doorways are 762mm at best, and the turn from the hall into the kitchen is the pinch point rather than the front door. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The awkward piece goes in before the easy ones.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Plaster over blockwork is thin and hollow in patches, so anything fixed back to the wall needs a sound spot found first. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. Older buildings get the extra hour.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. 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. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. One datum for every run in the room.

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. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened.