Worktop installation in Roe Green

Yes. Roe Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW9. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These have been added to over two centuries, so the kitchen is made of two or three walls of different ages and different thicknesses. Access through the property is usually the simplest of any archetype, with wide doors and generous rooms, so we can often carry a full-length piece straight in without a planned join. The slow parts are slow for a reason. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

The front door is often the cheapest hundred millimetres on the route, because a door lifted off its hinges gives back the width its own thickness was taking. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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 stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. 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. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. 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 overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. 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.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Windows are small and set deep, which leaves the run under them dark and the reveal too deep for a plain square end. 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. The house sets the order of work.

Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The void ends whether we have finished or not.