Worktop design and quotation in Brunswick Park

Yes. Brunswick Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N11. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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.

The back door frequently opens straight into the kitchen, which is the best carry route in the house and the one people forget to mention. 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. Where the customer keeps the units, the old tiled splashback usually comes off with the top and the plaster behind it needs making good before an upstand will sit tight.

Cul-de-sac layouts with parking bays and drives, easy kerbside working, but turning a long-wheelbase van in some of the closes is tighter than it looks on a map. 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 replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating. 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. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. 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. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. 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.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. Send photographs of every corner of the room and it gets priced properly first time. Priced as fabrication, not as area. 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. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Written to be read by whoever is paying.