Worktop fabrication in Temple Fortune

Yes. Temple Fortune is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW11. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Straps and battens are chosen for lifting, not just for transit. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The drains run down the side alley to a gully and an inspection cover near the back door, and the sink waste has always gone out on that side of the house. Most of these have a side passage and a back door, so a full-length piece can usually reach the kitchen without being cut down, and the piece sizing is driven by the slab rather than the route. The shell decides the piece; the slab decides only the yield. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Cut oversize on purpose, every time.

A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The cut list answers to the way in first. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. A booked slot dictates the order the frame is filled in.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. The annexe top comes off the main kitchen slab. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Small kitchens are more bench work per square metre.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Edge work on a return matches edge work on a length. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. The relief comes out of the slab, not the fitter. 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. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. Whoever holds the budget sees the drawing first.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. No money changes hands before the template. The old larder leaves behind a thick cold shelf and a vent brick through the outer wall, and both have to go before that wall reads flat. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. Vein direction is chosen across the joins, not within a piece.

What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Geometry first, then the saw.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. A piece too long for the stairs is a piece cut twice.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. A good number have a garage attached to the flank wall with a door through from the kitchen, which is both a way in and a stretch of wall the run cannot use. What does drive the bench work is the knocked-through kitchen-diner: the return worktop and any peninsula are seen end-on from the dining side, so we nest the pieces so the veining carries across the internal corner in the same direction rather than turning through ninety degrees. Walls out of plumb are cut for at the bench.