Worktop installation in Walworth

Yes. Walworth is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE17. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Many have had the ground floor chimney breast removed to gain three hundred millimetres, and the gained strip is newer blockwork standing proud of the old plaster. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

Sintered stone at 12mm changes what a staircase can take, because the same run arrives at roughly half the weight of the granite equivalent. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. A piece is stood on end only where there is room to turn it. 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. 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, one of the three we see most, with worktop replacement ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. 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. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered. 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. Handover day is a hard stop.

Butt-jointing over the gable puts the seam a few hundred millimetres back from the corner, below the eye line instead of straight across it. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. 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.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. The staircase rises over the back room in a good number of these, so a sloping bulkhead sits over one end of the run and a piece cannot be stood on edge beneath it. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it.

A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The side return was an outside toilet and a coal store before it was ever a kitchen, and the walls left over from that are half a brick thick. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The whole run is dry-fitted before any adhesive is opened.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Corner sinks and corner hobs sit exactly where the joint wants to be, so on an L the cut-out positions get settled before the join positions do. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Access is checked against the longest piece first.

A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame.