Worktop installation in Westcombe Park

Yes. Westcombe Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE3, SE10. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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. The day is built around that window. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. The day is planned backwards from the hall, and the scribing takes longer than the carry. That is the shape of the day. This is island country, pieces are big and heavy, so check the floor structure and whether the route round the side of the house beats the hallway.

Mostly straightforward: wide front paths, off-street parking on a fair number of plots and gently sloping roads down toward the railway, though streets nearest the station fill with commuter parking through the day. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication and worktop design & quotation. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Sealed before we leave.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The join is the last thing finished. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Protection goes down first.