Worktop design and quotation in Berrylands

Yes. Berrylands is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT5. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. You are told before you commit to a date. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Solid walls with no cavity have often been dry-lined internally at some point, and the lining thickness varies from wall to wall. These are typically two runs and a return, often into a rear extension, and the return piece is the awkward one, short, wide and rarely nesting well against the long pieces on the slab, so slab yield rather than total area is what pushes the material line up. You see it before you commit to anything. Because the houses repeat, so do the mistakes - the original kitchen window sits low, so upstands regularly clash with the sill and need cutting down.

Quiet residential roads, off-street driveways at nearly every house, and dropped kerbs that let the van get within a few metres of the front door - about as easy as access gets in the borough. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. That is why the fitting line on a quote reflects manpower and time rather than square metres. You see that figure before we template, not after.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. 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. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Nothing payable until we template. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. 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.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Better on the quote than in a variation. Send the extension drawing or the unit layout with the actual appliance model numbers, since cut-out sizes come from the appliance, not the cabinet. 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. Material is quoted as a supply range and the labour lines separately, because an installed rate per square metre is not a real number. Nothing payable until template.