Worktop installation in Wimbledon Village

Yes. Wimbledon Village is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW19. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Merton. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. 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 first hand off the van is the one holding the clock. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

A townhouse is tall and narrow with the kitchen at the bottom, so every piece goes down a staircase rather than along a hall. Access through the property is usually the simplest of any archetype, with wide doors and generous rooms, so we can often carry a full-length piece straight in without a planned join. The shell has the last word on fitting day. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. 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. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop fabrication. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence.

An island carries its own edge detail all the way round, so a mitred 100mm apron on four sides is four mitres cut, bonded and polished before the piece ever leaves the bench. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Communal floors are protected the same as private ones.

Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Carcasses stay. Surface changes. That is the whole of it. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. The day is built around that window.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. The stair to the lower ground floor has a turn at the bottom and a low soffit above it, and both are measured before anything is nested. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. 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. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. Nothing bears on plasterboard.

A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. 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.