Worktop installation in Riddlesdown

Yes. Riddlesdown 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. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The scullery floor was quarry tile bedded on concrete and it is often still under a laminate, sitting lower than the boards in the room it now joins. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Offered up twice, bonded once.

A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. 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. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. 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.

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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

A corbel on show under an overhang is a decision about how the piece looks from a stool, so it gets settled alongside the edge profile rather than left to whoever fits it. 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. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Sealant seals. It does not fit. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. 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. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. One datum for every run in the room.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The plaster is a thick float and set over brick that has blown in patches, so a wall sounds solid in one place and hollow a hand-span away. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Access, floor and wall in that order, then stone.

How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The void ends whether we have finished or not.