Worktop installation in Old Malden

Yes. Old Malden is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT4. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. 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. The day is built around that window. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Where the knock-through has taken in a rear bay, the far end of the room is three faces of window with no usable wall left at all. 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. The building moved decades ago and the fit allows for it. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. 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.

A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. 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. We would rather ask than guess.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Sealed before we leave. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. 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 sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. 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. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. 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.

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. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The rear extension is usually the newest and truest part of the building, so it is the older half of the kitchen that gives the trouble. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Older buildings get the extra hour.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. 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. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The kerb decides the start time.

Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Houses at the later end of this period went up in cavity rather than solid brick, so two that look identical from the road behave differently when a fixing goes in. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. 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 island is set against the perimeter, not a wall.