Worktop fabrication in Rotherhithe

Yes. Rotherhithe is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. The load plan follows from it. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Floors are suspended timber over a shallow void and have moved, so the units are packed and levelled before anything is set on them. The other constraint is the hall: a piece has to come through the front door, round the newel at the foot of the stairs and through a doorway into the back kitchen, so we size the pieces to the tightest turn on that route before we nest anything, which sometimes means splitting a run that would otherwise have gone in whole. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out. The listed and near-listed cottages have low ceilings and doorways under 1.9m, so pieces have to be sized to turn through the hall rather than to suit the kitchen alone.

Rotherhithe Street is a long single-carriageway loop with restricted kerbside and gated riverside courtyards, and the Rotherhithe Tunnel has height and width limits that rule out anything larger than a transit coming in from the north side. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. It is settled on the bench, not on site.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Proven on the bench before dispatch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Nested for the job in front of 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. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Every join sits over a gable. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. The sink and hob need to be on site and the run layout fixed before we start cutting, because moving a hob after the join position is set means recutting the whole piece. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. Dry-assembled before it leaves.