Worktop design and quotation in Brick Lane

Yes. Brick Lane is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. It is one line among the others, and it is honest. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Working hours are constrained by the business underneath, so noisy work has a window rather than a day. With little square metreage to spread them over, the cut-outs and the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines carry the quote, so each one is listed separately rather than buried in a rate. That is what the itemised lines are for. Above-shop flats mean everything gets planned in short jointed sections, and the stair, not the kitchen, sets the maximum piece size.

The street itself has heavy footfall from late morning until late at night, so realistically deliveries happen early and the van cannot sit for long. Flats above commercial units are reached by a separate side door and a very steep single-width stair, with no lift and no chance of turning a long piece at the top. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. 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 replacement, worktop templating 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. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. 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.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. Shape first, area second. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the 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. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Material is quoted as a supply range and the labour lines separately, because an installed rate per square metre is not a real number. Written to be read by whoever is paying.