Worktop fabrication in South Croydon

Yes. South Croydon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR2. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The frame is filled back to front when the bay is booked short. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Ceilings are high enough that an extractor over the island has a long drop, and its position is fixed before the island top is templated. Islands here regularly run longer than a slab, so the join is nested to sit over an internal gable and positioned so it does not run through the hob cut-out, and on a heavily veined stone we nest the island and the back run together so the movement relates across the room. The saw follows the template, never the plan. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. 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 relief comes out of the slab, not the fitter.

Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. Polishing a piece that cannot reach the room wastes a day. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Handling counts are decided here, not on the pavement.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. 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. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. One setout, eight identical tops.

The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Dry-assembled to the shape of your run. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Geometry first, then the saw. The range or Aga, the sink and the tap all need to be confirmed by model before nesting, because their clearances and hole positions set where the island can be cut. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. A repeated specification comes off one batch.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. A square internal corner is a crack waiting.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. A large villa has wide doors, a generous hall and somewhere to park, so the joins that go in are chosen for layout rather than forced by the route. The joins here are chosen rather than forced, so they go where the veining and the gables want them. The bow in an old wall is cut for, not sanded out.

The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. Lime plaster on nine inch brick has been patched with gypsum wherever a radiator or a socket has moved, and the two finish at different depths. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. Yield is worked out against the run lengths the house allows.

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. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Join count follows the shape, not the metreage.