Stone bar tops in West Heath

Yes. West Heath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE2, DA16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. 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 bar fit runs longer than a worktop run, because the frame, the support and the stone are three stages and only the last of them is quick. Trestles outside beat balancing a top on a half-built frame. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The under-stair cupboard opens off the kitchen in most of them, and its door swing is the reason a corner run stops where it does. These bars nearly always land at the open end of a knocked-through kitchen and dining room, which means the piece is read from both sides and both sides get the same edge treatment rather than one being left as a cut face. Two tiers where a single piece will not reach. 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. A bar top is levelled to itself rather than to what it stands on, so the packing goes into the frame and the stools take up whatever the floor is doing. A corbel never lands where a knee goes.

A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. That matters more on a bar than on a run, because a join forced by the way in cannot be allowed to land in the unsupported part of the nose. Nothing is leaned on a stud wall while it waits to be fitted. 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. That has to cover more than the unload, since the corbels, the flat bar and the fixings all come off the van well before the top does. The offcut from a bar sink leaves in the van.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. A bar is nearly always the last thing added to a project, so it is templated on a visit of its own once the joinery around it has stopped moving. The overhang is checked against the frame that exists. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Where the same detail is repeating across several rooms the support gets standardised once and then cut to length, which is cheaper than drawing it each time. A bar in constant use is a maintenance decision as well.

Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. A bar laid over that is a second level rather than a wider one, so it wants a spine underneath it and a settled detail where the two heights meet. What the shape gives in length it takes back in support. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

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. Where the nose has to be carried past something fixed the support moves rather than the stone, since a corbel landing in the knee space is worse than no corbel at all. The bar is packed level off the frame, not off the floor. Confirm the finished height you want and whether the bar is seen from both sides, and tell us who is building the frame and when it will be complete. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. Where the person choosing it is not the person who will lean on it, the seating height is set to a standard rather than to whoever happens to be standing in the room. A chipped front edge can be dressed in place.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. Anything that puts a notch in a bar takes material out of the piece at the point people lean on it, so the notch and the support are drawn together or not at all. A notch in a bar top is drawn with its support beside it.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. A counter fixed back to lightweight framing takes a sideways push as well as a downward load, and framing built for neither gets noggins let into it first. Leaning is a sideways load and framing has to answer for it.

The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. A shallow bay or a squared-off rear window means the run beneath it is rarely the same depth at both ends. None of that stops a bar being fitted level, but it does mean the top is set to a datum of its own and packed off the frame rather than followed down to the floor. The underside of the nose is polished because it is looked at.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. Where the counter runs flush with the working surface instead of standing above it the whole thing becomes one plane, which looks better and doubles the unsupported span. The nose line is drawn first and everything works back from it.