Worktop fabrication in Southall

Yes. Southall is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are UB1, UB2. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The yard reads the access note before it racks anything. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Many were built with a solid sub-floor to the rear rooms, so the kitchen floor is concrete and level while the front of the house is suspended timber. The other constraint is the hall: a piece has to come through the front door, round the newel at the foot of the stairs and through a doorway into the back kitchen, so we size the pieces to the tightest turn on that route before we nest anything, which sometimes means splitting a run that would otherwise have gone in whole. A century of movement is taken out at the bench. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Cut to the plotted line, not the nominal one.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. It is settled on the bench, not on site. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. One movement off the van starts with how it went on.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. A second kitchen or a kitchenette in an annexe is a small job with the same fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines as a large one. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Plot two has to match plot nine. Where an annexe has been built or converted, its floor and its walls are newer than the main house and behave differently under the same run. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Quartz reorders in five years, a granite block does not.

The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. 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. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The mitre is cut to the angle we found, not to ninety. The sink and hob need to be on site and the run layout fixed before we start cutting, because moving a hob after the join position is set means recutting the whole piece. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Upstands leave the bench in lengths, not as one run.

Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. Kerbside unloading is planned in the racking, not improvised at the door.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Edwardian terraces are wider and taller than the Victorian houses next to them, so the kitchen usually takes a full-width rear room rather than a narrow outrigger. Pieces are sized to the tightest turn on the route before anything is nested to the slab. Cut-outs are placed where the fabric will take them.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Drawn onto the slab before it is cut.