Worktop design and quotation in Brentham Garden Suburb

Yes. Brentham Garden Suburb is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W5. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. 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. Where a bay suspension or a permit is needed, that is a real cost and it goes on the quote instead of appearing later. 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.

A small room puts the sink, hob and tap cut-outs close together on one short length, and the bridge of stone left between them decides whether it can be cut in one piece. The quote separates the joins the run needs from the joins the route forces, because they are different decisions with the same price. You see it before you commit to anything. The conservation controls mean the kitchen stays exactly where it is, so this is a fitting and scribing problem rather than a design one.

Conservation area with narrow lanes, greens and hedged frontages, few driveways, and controls on skips and scaffolding that need arranging well ahead. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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.

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 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. 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.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. The join count is stated with its reason. 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. Send photographs of every corner of the room and it gets priced properly first time. Better on the quote than in a variation. Send us the run lengths, plus photos taken walking from the pavement through the hall to the kitchen so we can see the door widths and the stair turn. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Written to be read by whoever is paying.