Worktop installation in St James Street

Yes. St James Street is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E17. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Waltham Forest. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Cornice runs round the head of the wall, so the wall units stop under it and the splashback band is trapped between two things that are not going to move. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. 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. 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.

A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The first hand off the van is the one holding the clock.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

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. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked around the tenant, not around the owner.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. 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.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Fitting is booked as a run of consecutive days rather than as separate visits, which is what makes several kitchens in one building workable. Handover day is a hard stop.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Open-tread and cantilevered stairs give nothing to lean a piece against, so the whole weight stays on the crew for the full length of the flight. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. 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. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The return is offered up last.