Worktop installation in Nunhead

Yes. Nunhead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE15. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A semi has a side passage, and whether it is wide enough to carry a piece flat and turn it in at the back door is the first thing worth measuring. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. The age of the house sets the pace of it. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Protection goes down along it first. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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 new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Support first, stone second. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A forced back edge cracks weeks later. 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. Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A void between tenancies has no spare days in it.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. An under-stairs cupboard eats one end of most of these kitchens, and the run stops at a door that has to keep opening. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. The rear room is generous with a chimney breast in one corner, so the run gains a return and two scribed ends whatever the plan drew. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The laying order follows the shape.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Nothing in a house of this age is square, and the kitchen is usually the part that has been altered most often. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. Suction pads will not hold on a wet or dusty face.