Worktop installation in Norbury

Yes. Norbury is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW16. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The addition is one room wide, so the run is a galley with a door at one end and a window at the other and no wall long enough for anything else. 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. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Offered up twice, bonded once.

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. 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. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. 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.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop replacement comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. 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. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Sealant seals. It does not fit. 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. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. 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 day out of use, told to whoever lives there.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Gas, waste and later wiring were boxed in against the wall long after the house was built, and that boxing is what the run has to clear. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The day is built around that window.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. 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.

What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The step down from the main house into the addition is commonly a hundred to a hundred and fifty millimetres, which gives the kitchen a different floor datum from the rest of the ground floor. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. The shell has the last word on fitting day.