Worktop fabrication in Victoria

Yes. Victoria is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1E, SW1P. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These kitchens are full of boxed soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing usually stops short of the ceiling. The lift, if there is one, is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a tight turn at every half-landing - so pieces get cut deliberately shorter than the slab allows and the kitchen is designed with more joins than it strictly needs. Settled on the drawing, cut once. Recirculating extraction means the hob often sits under a wall unit rather than an external wall - confirm the hob cut-out clearances to the units above, they are tighter than a standard layout.

Victoria Street and Vauxhall Bridge Road are red routes with no loading in the day, so deliveries are early morning into a booked bay. New buildings have a service yard with a height barrier and a dedicated goods lift that has to be reserved days ahead. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. It is settled on the bench, not on site.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Nested for the job in front of us. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Same slab run, or it is not a match.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. The bench proves it before the van does. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. Access arrangements and the porter's permitted hours need confirming before we cut, because the agreed piece size is what the nesting is built around. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Sink and hob are dry-fitted on the bench before dispatch, whoever supplied them. The approved drawing is the instruction.