Worktop installation in St Paul's

Yes. St Paul's is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC4M. It is worked on our the City run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. The day is built around that window. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The room is genuinely square and the units are plumb, so the visit is more about the building than about the kitchen. If the diagonal is short we either split the run with a planned join or, on lower floors, carry up the stairwell, which needs the half-landing turn checking as well. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. Stepped and setted paving around the cathedral will jar a trolley badly, so carry the last stretch on a frame rather than wheeling it over the flags.

The immediate cathedral surroundings are pedestrianised with bollards and stepped paving, so the van stops on a permitted street and the last 100m or more is on foot across paving that is unkind to a trolley. Service access to residential floors is usually shared with the commercial tenants and restricted to outside their delivery hours. The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly.

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. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Book the service lift and loading bay with the building manager for the whole fitting window, and have the fob or key for lift override ready. Quartz is the sensible default in a rental: nothing to seal, nothing to maintain, and nothing an incoming tenant needs briefing on. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.