Worktop installation 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. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

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. 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. Levelled first, then set, then sealed. 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. 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.

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. 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. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. 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. Everything comes indoors before the loading window closes.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. 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.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Access is checked against the longest piece 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 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. 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. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The managing agent books the lift, not the household.

Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A spotter on the van is a man off the tools.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. The chimney breast served a back boiler and is usually still standing, so there is a shallow recess on one side of the room. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. Carried once, and carried properly.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. 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 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. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Dry-lay first, always.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone.