Worktop installation in West Kensington

Yes. West Kensington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W14. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. Where an event closes the road entirely, the van cannot be moved once it is in, which is a different problem from not being able to park at all. 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. We would rather ask than guess. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The flats are stacked identically, so the kitchen above sits directly over this one and its waste passes through the same boxing. This is the most managed day we do. Settlement is packed out, never levered out. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing.

Pendant fittings over the stairwell and anything hung on the half-landing come down first, because a piece on edge sweeps a wider arc than the people carrying it. 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 market day closes the street to traffic for the morning and hands it back in the afternoon, which moves the visit rather than cancelling it. 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 kerb decides the start time.

Often enough. It is one of the three, behind worktop replacement. The template, the workshop and the installers are the same either way. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. 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. 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.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Levels are checked across the walkway, not along one side. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all. Have the works booking confirmed with the managing agent or porter in advance, with the lift slot and any parking permit or bay suspension in place. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The whole slot, or the stone waits.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Freeholder consent, a works agreement and proof of insurance are often wanted before a van is allowed to unload. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The last piece down is the one nearest the door.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. The lift is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a turn at every half-landing. The porter has to be booked, the goods lift protected with the block's own blankets or our own boards, and communal carpet and stair runners covered from the entrance to the flat door before a single piece moves. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. The finish time is set by the block rather than by the work, so the sequence is planned to end early rather than to run late. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints.