Worktop installation in Ravensbury

Yes. Ravensbury is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR4, SM4. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Merton. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. Deck access or a single narrow staircase with tight half-landings means long pieces get walked up on edge, and the landing turn is checked before we commit. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time.

Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Scribed one piece at a time. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Residents are given written notice before anyone attends, and that notice period rather than the workshop is what governs the earliest sensible start. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. One person is responsible for the door that morning.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. One datum for every run in the room.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. These kitchens give three metres of usable wall and no more, so a dimension out by a few millimetres costs a whole run rather than a piece. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The awkward piece goes in before the easy ones.

Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall.