Worktop installation in Swiss Cottage

Yes. Swiss Cottage is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW3, NW6. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. 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. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These blocks were built with a lift from new, which will usually take a worktop and almost never takes a full-length island piece. This is the most managed day we do. That is the shape of the day. Interwar block kitchens sit on a solid concrete floor with a boxed-in soil stack in the corner, so allow for a notch and a scribe rather than assuming a clean 90-degree return.

Finchley Road is a red route with no stopping, so loading happens on the side streets under a Monday to Friday CPZ. Most blocks have a lift, but the older 1930s cars are small and shallow and a 3m slab will not stand up inside one. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One visit, done properly.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. 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.

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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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.