Worktop installation in Northumberland Heath

Yes. Northumberland Heath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA8. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The window cill clears a worktop by very little, which settles how tall the upstand under it can be before anyone has drawn a thing. The carry is the constraint. The house sets the order of work. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. 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.

The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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 gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre in. 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 day is built around that window.

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. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. 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. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. 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. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. 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 void between tenancies has no spare days in it.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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.

The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. The hot water cylinder sits in a cupboard opening off the kitchen or the landing above it, and the pipework to it drops through the corner of the room. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Overhanging branches clear the roof of a car and catch the roof of a van, so the drive is looked at from the driver seat rather than from the doorstep. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. We would rather ask than guess.