Worktop fabrication in Sands End

Yes. Sands End is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Packing takes its cue from the distance to the door. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The party walls are new and built to current sound standards, so they are thick, true and take a fixing well. Piece size is set by the lift car, not by the slab. A century of movement is taken out at the bench. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Left and right alcove pieces are marked and stay marked.

Managed buildings allow deliveries through the lift only between set hours, and a day that overruns them finishes with the last piece still on the pavement. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. What comes off first is settled before the doors shut.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. One kept offcut saves a whole flat later. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Repeat runs come off a jig, not a fresh setout.

An island carries its own edge detail all the way round, so a mitred 100mm apron on four sides is four mitres cut, bonded and polished before the piece ever leaves the bench. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Offcut sizes are decided before the first cut. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. A relief that deep changes how the piece is lifted. Sink, tap and hob need to be with us before machining, along with confirmation of whether the island is getting a breakfast overhang, since anything past roughly 300mm unsupported needs steel let into the carcasses and that has to be built in, not added later. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. One approval, one cut, one delivery.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Developer carcasses are thin cam-lock chipboard, which is entirely adequate under laminate and wants bracing before stone. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. Joins over gables, always.

Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Cut to the plotted line, not the nominal one.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Where the carry is long the pieces are strapped for handling rather than for the shortest route off the tail lift. The load sheet carries the parking note with it.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Undersides are polished where the piece is seen from below.