Worktop installation in West Hampstead

Yes. West Hampstead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW6. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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. We would rather ask than guess. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Boxed sash frames swallow a hundred millimetres of wall on each side of the opening, so the wall between a window and a corner is shorter than a plan makes it look. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Levelled first, then set, then sealed. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.

Whether the kitchen sits straight ahead or off a turn at the end of the hall changes the maximum piece far more than the hall width does. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after. 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. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The kerb decides the start time.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.

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. 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. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is. 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. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The whole slot, or the stone waits.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. 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. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Van to door is the distance that matters.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. 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 layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass.

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. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Original shutter boxes survive in the reveals of the front rooms and stand proud of the plaster, and that is the line a run under the window has to be scribed to. Pieces are stood on edge for the turns and carried flat for the straights, and that sequence is agreed before anything comes off the van. Carried once, and carried properly.