Worktop installation in Shooters Hill

Yes. Shooters Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE18. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. 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. Van to door is the distance that matters. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Original joinery is deep and stands proud of the plaster, so the run is plotted to the units rather than to the wall behind them. 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. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut.

The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The void ends whether we have finished or not. 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. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear.

Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. One datum for every run in the room. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up. 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. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access confirmed rather than assumed.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. The kitchen is a rear service room with a scullery and a larder off it, and both have usually survived as separate spaces. 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. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Windows are low and wide with deep timber cills and leaded lights, so a run under one meets joinery rather than plaster. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor.