Worktop installation in Noak Hill

Yes. Noak Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Windows are small and set deep, which leaves the run under them dark and the reveal too deep for a plain square end. Access through the property is usually the simplest of any archetype, with wide doors and generous rooms, so we can often carry a full-length piece straight in without a planned join. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest.

A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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.

A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. 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 is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The whole slot, or the stone waits.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. Ceilings are high enough that the wall units sit low against them, which leaves a tall band of wall above the worktop doing nothing. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Door fronts and stone edges get checked against each other first.

Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. A period cottage has low ceilings, thick rubble-filled walls and a floor that has never been level, and the worktop is the thing that has to look straight. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. A structure this old is worked with, not corrected.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.