Worktop design and quotation in Borough

Yes. Borough is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE1. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. 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.

External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. The lift car is the single biggest price driver here. That is what the itemised lines are for. Listed and conservation frontages mean no hoisting through windows, so the piece has to be dimensioned around the tightest turn on the stair.

Conservation area frontages with railings, a lightwell and a steep flight down to the basement door, plus a strictly enforced CPZ - the practical route is often the front steps and a hall turn rather than any side access. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. 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.

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. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. 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.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. 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.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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. Measure the internal lift car, width, depth and height, and photograph the stair turn and landing doors, then send those with the run lengths. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Nothing payable until template.