Worktop installation in Spitalfields

Yes. Spitalfields is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. 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. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Georgian houses put the kitchen in a basement or a rear closet wing, and the stairs down to it are the tightest part of the whole route. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Fixings go into what the wall actually is. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

If a hoist is the only way in then the piece sizes are designed around the opening, and the sash or casement usually has to come out first. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. 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 there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication. 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. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked around the tenant, not around the owner.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork.

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. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. Sash windows sit low in the rear wall, and the sill often lands below the height a worktop wants to run past. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Overhangs get brackets before anyone leans on them.

A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. A window lift means the glass unit and often the frame come out first, and putting it back weathertight is part of the same day. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands.