Worktop design and quotation in Biggin Hill

Yes. Biggin Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TN16. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. 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. Where a bay suspension or a permit is needed, that is a real cost and it goes on the quote instead of appearing later. 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.

Bungalow kitchens are frequently extended into the rear or opened into the roof space, so the room is part original and part new build. Walls between the original room and the extension are frequently out of square, which affects the template but not the price; what does affect it is the appliance list, because a drop-in range, an undermount bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a separate drainer are four separately priced cut-outs. That is what the itemised lines are for. Long shallow runs across a patchwork of extension walls throw out the depth, so we template the front edge as a straight line and take the variation on the scribe at the back.

The whole area is on a steep hill, and driveways run sharply up or down off the road. Steep, sloping drives are the problem, because a loaded trolley will not hold on a gradient and slabs get carried by hand. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. We price the carry from what you tell us about the route, so photographs of the approach are worth more to us than a floor plan. It appears as its own line rather than buried in a rate. 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 templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement. 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Material is the slab only, and it says so. 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. Nothing payable until we template.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Slab yield is worked out at quote stage, so if the layout forces a second slab you hear it before you commit rather than after. Shape first, area second. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Every line has a reason next to it.