Worktop installation in White City

Yes. White City is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W12. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. 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 start at seven than argue with a warden. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Some of these are dry-lined on battens over the concrete, so a fixing either finds a batten or goes straight through to the panel behind. The carry is the constraint. Settlement is packed out, never levered out. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall.

The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Every piece is staged to it before fitting starts. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. 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. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house.

A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The return is offered up last. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded. Reserve a space as close to the block entrance as possible and clear the landing and stairs of prams, bikes and stored items. Residents are given written notice before anyone attends, and that notice period rather than the workshop is what governs the earliest sensible start. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A day out of use, told to whoever lives there.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Sockets set into the end panel keep the top clear, but they sit below the stone and are cut into the panel by the fitter rather than machined into the worktop. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

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. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Levels are checked across the walkway, not along one side.