Worktop fabrication in South Hampstead

Yes. South Hampstead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW6, NW3. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These kitchens are big rooms with long perimeter runs and an island, so level has to hold across the whole floor rather than along one wall. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. The bow in an old wall is cut for, not sanded out. 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. 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.

Pendant fittings over the stairwell and anything hung on the half-landing come down first, because a piece on edge sweeps a wider arc than the people carrying it. 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. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. Handling counts are decided here, not on the pavement.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Repeat runs come off a jig, not a fresh setout. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. One setout, eight identical tops.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. 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. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. A repeated specification comes off one batch.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. No money is taken before the template happens. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. A curved bay or a canted corner turns up more often here than people expect, and a curve is templated and cut, never bent. 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 groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Ceilings are high enough that the wall units sit low against them, which leaves a tall band of wall above the worktop doing nothing. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. A short piece is cut short on purpose.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. 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.

How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Yield is what makes batching worth doing at all.