Worktop installation in Wanstead

Yes. Wanstead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E11. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. 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. The day is built around that window. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. The shell has the last word on fitting day. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall.

Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. 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.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. 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. 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. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Levels are checked across the walkway, not along one side. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One visit where permission only stretches to one.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. The back addition is frequently a single skin of brick rendered on both faces, which takes a fixing badly and moves with the weather. 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.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A permit covering the street is permission to park rather than a space reserved on it, and on a full street the difference is the whole morning. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. The kerb decides the start time.

Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see.