Worktop installation in Welling

Yes. Welling is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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 carry length sets the number of hands on the job. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The stack serving the bathroom above comes down the rear elevation in cast iron, and its branch settles where a sink waste can reasonably be picked up. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. The house sets the order of work. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. A piece is stood on end only where there is room to turn it. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.

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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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.

Power and waste come up through the floor, and where they surface decides which cabinet can hold a sink and which one cannot. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. 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.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame.

Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The return is offered up last.

Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. It sets the crew: two fitters where the route is straightforward, four where it is not. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them.