Worktop installation in North Wembley

Yes. North Wembley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA0, HA9. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. 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. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The original kitchen was a working room with a scullery and a pantry off it, so what is now one space was two or three with brick walls between them. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. One datum for every run in the room. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A forced back edge cracks weeks later. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. These were built with a coal store and an outside lavatory off the back, and where those got absorbed into the kitchen the walls around them are thinner and later. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The awkward piece goes in before the easy ones.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Protection goes down along it first.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again.

A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall.