Kitchen worktops in North Ealing

Yes. Substantial houses with the kitchen at the rear and a separate utility behind it. Islands with waterfall ends, and increasingly a second sink and a dedicated prep zone away from the main run. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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 kerb decides the start time.

Large Edwardian detached, 1930s detached, interwar semi and period conversion flat. Windows are low and wide with deep timber cills and leaded lights, so a run under one meets joinery rather than plaster. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. The tops go on level even when nothing else is.

Wide roads with garages and drives on most properties, so parking is rarely a problem. The Hanger Lane gyratory is the only real obstacle on the way in. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. The cut list answers to the way in first.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. Where an annexe has been built or converted, its floor and its walls are newer than the main house and behave differently under the same run. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. The batch is checked against itself before it leaves. Waterfall ends are cut and dry-assembled in the workshop, because a mitred external corner is not something you fix on site in someone's kitchen.

On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The step between rooms is packed out first. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. A plan-angle mitre closes on paper only. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. We check who is entitled to approve it. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. A piece too long for the stairs is a piece cut twice.

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. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Internal walls are lath and plaster on studs with heavy framing behind, so a fixing finds either nothing at all or something very solid. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. What the building will take decides how it is fixed.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The range sits in a former chimney opening, so the pieces either side of it are short, unequal and cut to brickwork rather than to a module. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. The last piece down is the one nearest the door.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. The workshop cuts to that constraint, so a piece leaves the bench already sized to reach where it is going. Handling points are marked on the crate before it is strapped.