Worktop design and quotation in Addington

Yes. Addington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. Nothing here is added after the fact. 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. With little area to spread them over, the cut-outs and the fixed lines carry the quote, so each is listed on its own. That is what the itemised lines are for. The 1960s houses often have the kitchen a step above the hall on a raised slab, which changes the finished worktop height, so we set out from the cabinet tops rather than a stated 900mm.

The village lanes are narrow with a sharp bend and no pavement in places, and the tram runs through on its own alignment, so unloading has to be off the carriageway. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. That is why the fitting line on a quote reflects manpower and time rather than square metres. It appears as its own line rather than buried in a rate.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Material is the slab only, and it says so. Households sharing a house tend to want two prep areas rather than one, which usually means an island as well as a perimeter run. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. Shape first, area second. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. Send photographs of every corner of the room and it gets priced properly first time. Priced as fabrication, not as area. Tell us whether there is side or rear access to the kitchen from outside, and send the run lengths with a photo of the window and boiler positions. 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 quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Every line has a reason next to it.