Worktop fabrication in Rushey Green

Yes. Rushey Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE6. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. A long walk from the van earns heavier corner protection. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The larder under the stairs is usually still there and still opens into the kitchen, so the run stops at a door that cannot be moved. The galley run down a side-return usually measures longer than a slab will give us, so a join is designed in from the start and nested to land over a cabinet gable rather than wherever the material happens to run out. The bench proves it before the van moves. 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. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. The drawing decides it, not the fitter.

Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. Crates are sized to clear the same openings the stone does. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. The frame is filled back to front when the bay is booked short.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop installation ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. 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. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. The spares are cut while the slab is still open. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. One kept offcut saves a whole flat later.

A single long run down one side puts every cut-out in one piece, so the sink, the hob and any drainer grooves all take material out of the same length. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Edge work on a return matches edge work on a length. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Machined to the real line. 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. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. One approval, one cut, one delivery.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Cut oversize on purpose, every time.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Where a side return has been infilled, the join between old brick and new blockwork lands mid-run and the two faces are never in one plane. 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.

If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. How the slab has been stored is worth telling us, because stone kept flat is not stone off a rack. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Repeat pieces are cut from one drawing set, so what arrives on the bench is the same every time. Repeat runs come off a jig, not a fresh setout.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A galley run down a side-return extension usually measures longer than a slab will give in one length, so a join is designed in from the start rather than discovered. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Offcut sizes are decided before the first cut.