Worktop installation in Tolworth

Yes. Tolworth is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT6. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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 crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The kitchen is at the front or the back depending on the plan, and which it is decides whether there is a rear door on the route at all. Access is generally through the front door and a short straight hall into the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than a Victorian terrace, though rear access through a back garden or shared path is often the better route if it exists. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Nothing bears on plasterboard.

Once a long piece is in on the diagonal there is no room left for anyone else, so it travels up alone and is met on the landing above. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. None of it is worked out on the doorstep. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. 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 carry length sets the number of hands on the job.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. 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. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together.

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. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. Unlock any rear or shared path gate and clear both the hall and the back approach so we can choose the better route on the day. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Doorways are 762mm at best, and the turn from the hall into the kitchen is the pinch point rather than the front door. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The join is polished flat before we call it done.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Pieces get staged in the ground floor lobby and sent up singly, which needs somewhere to stand them where nobody will walk into them. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The crew size follows from it.

How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Fitting is booked as a run of consecutive days rather than as separate visits, which is what makes several kitchens in one building workable. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house.