Worktop installation in Osterley

Yes. Osterley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW7. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hounslow. 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. 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.

The kitchen is a small room off a hall with one external wall, and the window in it is the only relief in the run. Access is generally through the front door and a short straight hall into the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than a Victorian terrace, though rear access through a back garden or shared path is often the better route if it exists. Old floors get packed, not argued with. 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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves. On a drive that only takes one vehicle nose-in, the van has to reverse the whole length of it to get back out, which decides which way it goes 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. We would rather ask than guess.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. 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. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time.

Side-return kitchens are long and narrow with one outside wall, and the wall the run sits against is often the oldest, least straight surface in the house. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again. Unlock any rear or shared path gate and clear both the hall and the back approach so we can choose the better route on the day. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. 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.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. 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 gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The communal entrance opens straight off the pavement with no lobby, so the carry starts at the kerb and turns immediately. Rear or shared-path access is often the only way to bring a long piece in without turning it in the hall. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Plaster over blockwork is thin and hollow in patches, so anything fixed back to the wall needs a sound spot found first. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Older buildings get the extra hour.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run: short lengths, few joins, and a lot to work around. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Access, floor and wall in that order, then stone.