Worktop installation in Whitton

Yes. Whitton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW2. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hounslow. 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. 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. Van to door is the distance that matters. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The windows were steel to begin with and have been swapped for plastic in openings lined out to suit, so the reveal is now deeper than the brickwork behind it. 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. Carried once, and carried properly. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them. 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. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house.

Whether it comes off the same slab as the run behind it or needs one of its own is settled by laying both against the usable area of the slab, not by adding the metres up. 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. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. Unlock and clear the side gate and back door, and move bins, planters and washing lines out of the alley run. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. 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.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out.

The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The original room is timber over a ventilated void and the newer half is a slab, so the floor gives underfoot on one side of the junction and not on the other. 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. Old floors get packed, not argued with.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The kitchen door opens inwards into the middle of a run, so the usable length of that wall stops well short of the corner. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in.