Worktop installation in Sydenham

Yes. Sydenham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE26. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. 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. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The flat entrance door is a certified fire door on a closer, and taking it off for an hour means dealing with the seals and the closer before the day ends. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. The slow parts are slow for a reason. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. 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. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Handover day is a hard stop.

A breakfast bar on the outer side is an overhang like any other, and the support under it is sized for people leaning on the end rather than for the weight of the stone alone. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is cut on site if the bench can do it. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Notice periods decide the date more often than the workshop.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. 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. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. A settled floor adds an hour and the day allows for it.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. 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. Door fronts and stone edges get checked against each other first.