Worktop fabrication in Well Hall

Yes. Well Hall is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE9. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The strapping answers to the walk, not the drive. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

The kitchen sits at the rear with a door to the garden and a window over the sink, so the useful run is broken into two short lengths. Most of these have a side passage and a back door, so a full-length piece can usually reach the kitchen without being cut down, and the piece sizing is driven by the slab rather than the route. Lath and plaster is cut for, never cut into. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Geometry first, then the saw.

Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The maximum piece is written on the drawing in millimetres. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Stacking order is a parking decision here.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. 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. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Cut for the slot, because the slot will not move. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. The batch is checked against itself before it leaves.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. The corner is proven on the bench first. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. A square internal corner is a crack waiting. The peninsula end detail needs deciding up front - square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall - because a waterfall end has to be cut in sequence off the same part of the slab as the top. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The bench proves the fit before the van is loaded.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. The van is packed to suit the walk at the other end.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. These were built in short runs of six or eight houses, so the party walls are solid brick and the rear elevation is a straight line with no outriggers. What does drive the bench work is the knocked-through kitchen-diner: the return worktop and any peninsula are seen end-on from the dining side, so we nest the pieces so the veining carries across the internal corner in the same direction rather than turning through ninety degrees. The piece is made for the room the builders left.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. Nesting follows the route, not the other way round.

A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Yield is worked on the slab, not on a calculator.