Worktop installation in Upton Park

Yes. Upton Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E13, E6. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. Where an event closes the road entirely, the van cannot be moved once it is in, which is a different problem from not being able to park at all. 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 day is built around that window. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

An infill house is built to modern standards on an old plot, so the room is square even though the site around it is not. Everything comes up in the lift, so we measure the lift car's internal diagonal before the piece is loaded, because a car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a 3m worktop no matter how you stand it. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. Stud centres are almost never where the brackets would like to be, so fixing positions get set from the framing and the stone is designed to suit. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it. A market day closes the street to traffic for the morning and hands it back in the afternoon, which moves the visit rather than cancelling it. 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. We would rather ask than guess.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop splashbacks & upstands. A family adding a self-contained unit is paying for the whole conversion, and the worktop is one line in a much longer job. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. Where several adults share the cooking the kitchen is in use most of the day, so a fitting slot has to be agreed with more people than usual. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A partition that gives when you lean on it will give under someone sitting at an overhang, and a bonded mitre nearby is where that movement shows first. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Communal floors are protected the same as private ones.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The lift car, the loading bay and the building manager decide the piece sizes here, not the slab. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Packers under the carcass, not shims under the stone.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Lift doors close on a timer that takes no account of somebody holding a worktop, so a pair of hands stays on the buttons at each end. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Protection goes down along it first.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. A car will often hold more than its doors will admit, and it is the clear width between the door edges that a piece actually has to pass through. It sets the crew: two fitters where the route is straightforward, four where it is not. Every piece is staged to it before fitting starts.

Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Access is a question about the plot rather than the house: a narrow frontage between older buildings with nowhere obvious to stand a van. 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. The slow parts are slow for a reason.