Worktop installation in Plashet

Yes. Plashet is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E6, E7. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The slow parts are slow for a reason. Utility rooms carved out of old sculleries usually need a second smaller top, and it is worth cutting it from the same slab for a match.

Streets are permit-controlled with heavy residential parking pressure, and the school run times create genuine congestion on the through roads, so a mid-morning slot is best. Front paths are short and level, hallways are wide enough on the larger houses to bring in a 3m piece on edge. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement and worktop templating. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. 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.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.