Worktop installation in Streatham Hill

Yes. Streatham Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW2. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. 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.

These kitchens are full of boxed soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing usually stops short of the ceiling. The porter has to be booked, the goods lift protected with the block's own blankets or our own boards, and communal carpet and stair runners covered from the entrance to the flat door before a single piece moves. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. The 1930s galley kitchens are barely 1.8m wide, which means a standard 600mm top plus an opposite run leaves under 600mm of walking space, check the client actually wants both sides before fabricating.

Several of the blocks are listed or in a conservation area, so no fixings to communal fabric and no propping doors open; lifts are original and small. The A23 is a red route with no stopping, so unloading happens on side roads and the carry starts from there. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The join is the last thing finished. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Have the works booking confirmed with the managing agent or porter in advance, with the lift slot and any parking permit or bay suspension in place. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. One visit, our own installers.