Worktop installation in Stamford Hill

Yes. Stamford Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N16. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. 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. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Rear rooms of this date have a wide sash or a pair of garden doors, so a good deal of the wall the run wants is glass. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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.

Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

Often enough. It is one of the three, behind worktop fabrication. The template, the workshop and the installers are the same either way. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Handover day is a hard stop. Two households cooking in one kitchen means two of most things, and the run has to carry a second sink or a second oven without losing its working length. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

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 back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. 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 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 fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The slot belongs to whoever can open the door.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Chimney breasts are often taken out at ground level and left standing above, so the middle of the run is newer wall than the two ends of it. 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.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Internal walls are lath on timber studs while the flank walls are brick, so two walls in the same kitchen take a fixing completely differently. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. 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.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. An under-stairs cupboard eats one end of most of these kitchens, and the run stops at a door that has to keep opening. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. A settled floor adds an hour and the day allows for it.