Worktop installation in Richmond Hill

Yes. Richmond Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW10. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Offered up twice, bonded once.

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. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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 junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. 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. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Sealant seals. It does not fit. 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. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. 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. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. 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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The awkward metre takes the longest.

A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before.

A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Steel under the overhang before stone goes near it.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. 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. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut.