Worktop installation in Underhill

Yes. Underhill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EN5. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

Ceilings run to about two point four metres, so wall units, a splashback and an extractor are all competing for the same short band of wall. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

A car ceiling at 2.2m sets the tallest thing that will stand in it, and the trap panel and light fitting take a slice off even that. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. 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 one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A galley is levelled as one plane, both sides together. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Where the provider has set the specification the material choice was made once for a great many kitchens, and the useful work is meeting it exactly rather than proposing something else on the day. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A rolling programme loses a flat to one missing key.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The boiler has usually been moved into the kitchen at some point, with its flue through the outer leaf and its pipework surface run to the nearest corner. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. The join is polished flat before we call it done.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Crittall windows were swapped for plastic ones in openings that were made good rather than rebuilt, which leaves reveals that are neither straight nor equal. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. Old plaster gets scribed to, never fought with.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. A goods lift booked by the hour puts a clock on the whole delivery, so pieces go up in a planned order and nothing is handled twice. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Protection goes down along it first.