Worktop installation in West Acton

Yes. West Acton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W3. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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 carry length sets the number of hands on the job. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The hall is parquet or original boards in a good many of these, and it is the surface that takes the traffic for the whole of a fitting day. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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.

A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Handover day is a hard stop. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together.

Sockets set into the end panel keep the top clear, but they sit below the stone and are cut into the panel by the fitter rather than machined into the worktop. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. The managing agent books the lift, not the household.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. 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. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. Two runs and a return into a rear extension is the pattern, and the return is the piece that never nests neatly on a slab. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Old plaster gets scribed to, never fought with.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. The piece is offered up, marked, taken back out and cut, and that cycle can run twice before anything is bonded down. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see.