Worktop installation in Roehampton

Yes. Roehampton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW15. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. 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. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The gas enters at the back of the house and the pipe to the hob crosses the room at low level in a boxing along the skirting. The carry is the constraint. The house sets the order of work. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

Car depth is the number that settles it wherever a piece cannot be stood upright, and most residential cars are shallower than the run they are serving. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The building keeps working around us.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Waterfall legs are set before the top is bonded down. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. 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. Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One person is responsible for the door that morning.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A car ceiling at 2.2m sets the tallest thing that will stand in it, and the trap panel and light fitting take a slice off even that. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A slipped slot takes the next one with it.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The original plan had one sink position, and moving it means taking a waste through a wall that does not want to be cut. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Older buildings get the extra hour.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Walls and ceilings carry decades of thick emulsion over artex, and neither surface tells you where the true line is. 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.