Worktop installation 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. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

A range sitting in a chimney recess is common, and the flanking pieces are cut with the manufacturer clearance built into the template. 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. The tops go on level even when nothing else is. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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.

Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before. Visitor permits are issued to the household rather than to the trade, so the ones the day needs come from the customer and are best in hand the week before. 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. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn.

The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A corner that will not close is never forced. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The room cleared before the crew arrives.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. 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.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. The kitchen is generally a rear extension or a knocked-through pair of rooms, so part of the perimeter is old wall and part of it is new. 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. What the building will take decides how it is fixed.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. There is a door to the garden, a door to the hall and often a door to a utility, so the perimeter run is interrupted three times. The carry from where the van can stand to the door is boarded wherever it crosses gravel, grass or a stone floor. The age of the house sets the pace of it.