Worktop installation in Wandsworth Town

Yes. Wandsworth Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW18. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. 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. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A riverside block is a managed building with a booked goods lift, a loading bay and a concierge, and all three have to line up on the same day. 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. The tops go on level even when nothing else is. Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced.

Managed buildings allow deliveries through the lift only between set hours, and a day that overruns them finishes with the last piece still on the pavement. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. 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 fabrication and worktop replacement. 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. 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. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. 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.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Access is checked against the longest piece first. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. 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. One visit where permission only stretches to one.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. An unsupported overhang off a stud wall wants noggins fixed between the studs before the boarding goes on, and once it is boarded and skimmed that option has gone. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Offered up twice, bonded once.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. Where only one car serves the building a breakdown on the morning halts the job outright, so the fallback route is worked out at template rather than on the landing. 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.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Floor-to-ceiling glazing lights the worktop from one side all day, which shows every ripple in a polished surface and every gap at a scribe. 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. What the building will take decides how it is fixed.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always.