Worktop design and quotation in Enfield Wash

Yes. Enfield Wash is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EN3. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Enfield. 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. Where a bay suspension or a permit is needed, that is a real cost and it goes on the quote instead of appearing later. 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.

Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. 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. You see it before you commit to anything. Old flat-roof extensions have thrown their base units out of level - shim and re-level the carcasses before templating or the quartz sits on three points.

Wide residential streets off Ordnance Road with driveways or a hardstanding on most plots, so the van gets close. The catch is a side gate and a narrow passage down the side of the house if the kitchen is at the back. 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. 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. Nothing about it gets estimated after the fact.

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 installation. 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. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. 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. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Nothing payable until we template.

Three runs means two internal corners, and each corner is a decision about mitre or butt joint before anything is nested. 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.

A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Better on the quote than in a variation. 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. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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.