Worktop installation in Tower Hill

Yes. Tower Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC3N. It is worked on our City of London run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. 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. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A former office building converted to flats has deep floorplates, so kitchens end up in internal rooms with no external wall at all. If the diagonal is short we either split the run with a planned join or, on lower floors, carry up the stairwell, which needs the half-landing turn checking as well. What the building will take decides how it is fixed. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

A handrail that has to come off before a piece will pass is twenty minutes at the start of the day, and it goes back on the wall before we leave. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Handover day is a hard stop. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. 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 last piece in has the least tolerance left. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Book the service lift and loading bay with the building manager for the whole fitting window, and have the fob or key for lift override ready. 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. The managing agent books the lift, not the household.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. The kitchen is usually part of the living space, so three edges are read from a sofa rather than from standing height at the sink. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The room is swept and the offcuts leave with us.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. 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. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. 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. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Access is checked against the longest piece first.

Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. The structure is a concrete or steel frame, so what looks like a wall is often a partition and what looks like a partition is often a column. The lift is measured before the piece is loaded, and once inside the flat the fitting is quick by comparison. The age of the house sets the pace of it.