Worktop installation in Rayners Lane

Yes. Rayners Lane is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA2, HA5. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Harrow. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Balcony access and long communal corridors are often the carry route, and both are narrower than they look with a piece on edge. The porter has to be booked, the goods lift protected with the block's own blankets or our own boards, and communal carpet and stair runners covered from the entrance to the flat door before a single piece moves. The shell has the last word on fitting day. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest.

Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Sealed before we leave. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut. Have the works booking confirmed with the managing agent or porter in advance, with the lift slot and any parking permit or bay suspension in place. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Van to door is the distance that matters.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. There is usually a rounded internal corner where the plan turns, and stone does not follow a curve without being cut to it. The finish time is set by the block rather than by the work, so the sequence is planned to end early rather than to run late. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. 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. The communal stair is stone with a cast iron balustrade, and the winders leave very little room to turn a long piece. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. A bad floor is corrected under the carcass, never with sealant.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. The original fitted dresser and the vent to outside air have often left their openings behind the units, unfilled and unrecorded. The lift is boarded and blanketed before the first piece leaves the van, and the porter is told the sequence. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly.