Worktop installation in Waterloo

Yes. Waterloo is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE1. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Cottage terraces have no hall to speak of and the front door opens almost straight into the room, which makes the carry easier and the protection harder. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day. In the listed cottages you cannot chase walls or fix through original fabric, so upstands get bonded rather than mechanically fixed and the tolerances have to be right first time.

This is the hardest access area in the borough — congestion charge, red routes on almost every approach, no residents' bays available to trades and constant pedestrian traffic. Everything is booked, early and short. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. None of it is worked out on the doorstep. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. 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. 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. 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 parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. 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. 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. 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. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first.