Worktop fabrication in Stonecot Hill

Yes. Stonecot Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM3. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These were built in short runs of six or eight houses, so the party walls are solid brick and the rear elevation is a straight line with no outriggers. Where a full length can come down the side and in at the back, the nest follows the slab instead of the building. A scribe of twenty millimetres is machined, not fettled on site. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Oversize on the scribe edge, always.

Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off the van. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. A piece is cut to the turn it has to clear. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. That is the last thing settled before dispatch.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Yield is what makes batching worth doing at all. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Short runs waste more slab than long ones do.

Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Drawn onto the slab before it is cut. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The radius goes in at the bench, not on site. The peninsula end detail needs deciding up front - square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall - because a waterfall end has to be cut in sequence off the same part of the slab as the top. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. Remakes for our error are ours to carry.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. Where the side return has been filled in, one side of the new room is old brick and the other is new blockwork, and the two do not behave alike. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. The awkward corner is cut first, while the slab is whole.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Where the carry is long the pieces are strapped for handling rather than for the shortest route off the tail lift. Loaded for the carry, not for the van.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. The under-stair cupboard opens off the kitchen in most of them, and its door swing is the reason a corner run stops where it does. The return piece is nested against the long runs so the veining turns the corner in one direction rather than meeting itself. Older houses come off the bench with longer scribes.

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. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. A deep relief needs material left behind it.