Worktop installation in Purley

Yes. Purley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR8. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. A gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre 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. 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. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. It is the slow part of the day and it should be.

Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves. 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. 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.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop fabrication comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. 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. The building keeps working around us. 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. A slipped slot takes the next one with it.

The offcut taken out of the middle for a hob is a large usable piece, and it is worth deciding early whether it becomes an upstand or goes in the skip. 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. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Offered up twice, bonded once. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. Suspended floors at the front meet a solid slab in the extension somewhere in the middle, and the units sit across the change. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Access, floor and wall in that order, then stone.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Sealant seals. It does not fit.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. 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. The shell has the last word on fitting day.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.