Worktop installation in Streatham Common

Yes. Streatham Common is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW16. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. 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. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Edwardian terraces are wider and taller than the Victorian houses next to them, so the kitchen usually takes a full-width rear room rather than a narrow outrigger. 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. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Nothing bears on plasterboard.

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. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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 van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop splashbacks & upstands comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Fire doors stay shut, so the carry route is longer. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The last trade in inherits every delay before it.

A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Steel under the overhang before stone goes near it. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. 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. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A locked door costs the day, not an hour.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Original quarry tile is often still down under two or three later floor coverings, which is why the finished floor height is rarely what anyone expects. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. A settled floor adds an hour and the day allows for it.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. 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. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. Fitting is booked as a run of consecutive days rather than as separate visits, which is what makes several kitchens in one building workable. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Ground floors fall away towards the garden across the whole footprint, so the units are packed up long before anything is measured for stone. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Door fronts and stone edges get checked against each other first.