Worktop installation in Stepney

Yes. Stepney is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. 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 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.

Base units from the seventies and eighties are often only 500mm deep, so a 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors want checking against it. The fitting itself is about squaring up to walls that look modern and are not: block or breeze walls with a skim that has been patched over decades, so we still dry-lay and scribe rather than trust the template edge. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. Original estate kitchens are frequently out of square where partitions were built off timber studs, so scribes matter more here than anywhere else in the borough.

Vehicle access is through estate roads with speed tables, resident-only bays and bollarded pedestrian links, so a route survey saves a long carry. Low-rise deck housing means walking the slab along a raised walkway with a step up at the door threshold. Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop templating. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. One visit, done properly. 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. The prep list is not optional.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the laser plots the intermediate points. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. Unlock any rear or shared path gate and clear both the hall and the back approach so we can choose the better route on the day. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.