Worktop design and quotation in Carshalton Beeches

Yes. Carshalton Beeches is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM5. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. 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. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. 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.

A side alley and a back door mean most pieces go in whole, and it is the alley width rather than the front door that decides it. These are typically two runs and a return, often into a rear extension, and the return piece is the awkward one, short, wide and rarely nesting well against the long pieces on the slab, so slab yield rather than total area is what pushes the material line up. That is what the itemised lines are for. Being able to get straight round the side means single lengths over 3m are actually deliverable here, so the design should take advantage rather than defaulting to a joint.

Very good. Wide tree-lined roads, deep front drives with room to turn, and side access down the flank of most detached houses straight to the rear. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication and worktop installation. 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. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. 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. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. 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. 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.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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.