Worktop installation in Oakwood

Yes. Oakwood is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N14. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Enfield. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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 work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Air bricks that once ventilated the original floor now open into the extension, and one of them is generally sitting behind a base unit. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time.

Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Support first, stone second. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The laying order follows the shape.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Downstairs the hall and dining room are boarded but the kitchen was laid solid from the start, so the room sits on a different construction from the one beside it. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. The building moved decades ago and the fit allows for it.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. The piece is offered up, marked, taken back out and cut, and that cycle can run twice before anything is bonded down. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone.