Worktop installation in Rainham

Yes. Rainham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM13. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. 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. We would rather ask than guess. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

These have been added to over two centuries, so the kitchen is made of two or three walls of different ages and different thicknesses. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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.

Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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. The kerb decides the start time.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The building keeps working around us. 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. 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.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Offered up twice, bonded once. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys.

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. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Sealant seals. It does not fit.

A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Windows are small and set deep, which leaves the run under them dark and the reveal too deep for a plain square end. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone.