Worktop installation in Wallington

Yes. Wallington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM6. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Original walls are thick, lime-plastered and rarely straight, which makes dry-laying and scribing the bulk of the fitting day. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

A tiled hall floor takes a dropped corner badly, so boards go down over the tiles before anything comes through the door. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Notice periods decide the date more often than the workshop.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. A lantern or a rooflight over the room throws raking light across every horizontal surface, which shows a lipped join from the far side of the kitchen. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Older buildings get the extra hour.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. A range sitting in a chimney recess is common, and the flanking pieces are cut with the manufacturer clearance built into the template. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. The building moved decades ago and the fit allows for it.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. The first hand off the van is the one holding the clock.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Old flues run inside the wall behind the run, so a deep fixing finds a void about as often as it finds brick. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Access, floor and wall in that order, then stone.