Worktop installation in North Kensington

Yes. North Kensington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W10. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. Camera enforcement gives nobody the chance to explain, where an officer on foot at least sees a tail lift down and stone coming off it. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The stairs come down against the wall the addition opens off, so the doorway into the kitchen is offset and the corner beside it is taken by the cupboard under the flight. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut.

A goods lift booked by the hour puts a clock on the whole delivery, so pieces go up in a planned order and nothing is handled twice. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip. Where a loading concession applies at all, it holds only while something is being carried, which makes it a way to unload rather than a way to park. 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. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A landlord ordering several kitchens at once is buying a specification once and then repeating it, so the early decisions are worth taking slowly. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. Shared-house kitchens take heavier use from more people than a family kitchen does, and the surface gets chosen on that basis rather than on looks. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. 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. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. One datum for every run in the room.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. The addition is a brick narrower than the house it hangs off, which leaves a stub of the original rear wall standing square to the run at the doorway end. 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.

The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.