Worktop installation in Nine Elms

Yes. Nine Elms is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW8, SW11. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. 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. We would rather ask than guess. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. The goods lift is often industrial and generous, but the flat entrance and any internal turn into a mezzanine or split level can be tighter than anything in the building, so we walk the full route with a tape before unloading. The slow parts are slow for a reason. Get the goods lift internal dimensions in writing before cutting, because a 2.8m piece that will not stand up in the lift car has to be re-cut at the workshop, not on the loading bay.

Every building is managed — loading bay booking, a service lift with a stated internal length, dock time limits and a site induction before anyone goes up. The lift diagonal, not the door, is what limits slab size. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. One visit, done properly. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. 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. Confirm loading bay access and lift booking with the building's management, and clear any furniture from the mezzanine stairs or split-level approach. A let property is specified for durability and for a fixed window, and both of those are legitimate reasons to choose differently. 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. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.