Worktop installation in New Barnet

Yes. New Barnet is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EN5, EN4. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. 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 clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The original larder or store cupboard usually survives in a corner, and that alcove is deeper than the units and squarer than the walls around it. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut.

A car ceiling at 2.2m sets the tallest thing that will stand in it, and the trap panel and light fitting take a slice off even that. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands. A permit covering the street is permission to park rather than a space reserved on it, and on a full street the difference is the whole 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. 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 is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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.

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. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. A goods lift booked by the hour puts a clock on the whole delivery, so pieces go up in a planned order and nothing is handled twice. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. 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.

Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Rear rooms of this date have a wide sash or a pair of garden doors, so a good deal of the wall the run wants is glass. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. A structure this old is worked with, not corrected.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.