Worktop installation in North Feltham

Yes. North Feltham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW14. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hounslow. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Front doors off the deck open into a lobby barely wider than the door itself, and the turn out of it is a right angle. The carry is the constraint. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest.

Where the hall runs straight through to the back the piece can be walked in flat, and it is only the two door frames that have to be cleared. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. 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.

Sockets set into the end panel keep the top clear, but they sit below the stone and are cut into the panel by the fitter rather than machined into the worktop. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. 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. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A day out of use, told to whoever lives there.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The piece is offered up, marked, taken back out and cut, and that cycle can run twice before anything is bonded down. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Support first, stone second.