Worktop design and quotation in Gipsy Hill

Yes. Gipsy Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE19, SE27. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Where a bay suspension or a permit is needed, that is a real cost and it goes on the quote instead of appearing later. Nothing here is added after the fact. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same day's work whether the kitchen is five square metres or eight, so on a small kitchen they are a larger share of the total, and one slab covers the lot, which makes the material band the main lever you actually control. Priced from the building, not from a rate card. Split-level layouts mean the kitchen floor and the adjoining room floor are different heights, so set the datum in the kitchen itself and never carry a level through from the hall.

Roads climb sharply with tight bends and limited turning space, so a long van has to plan the route in and out. Front approaches are frequently down steps to a lower entrance, and the combination of gradient and steps rules out trolleys. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. 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 replacement 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 kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. 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. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. 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.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. 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.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Photographs are worth more than a plan here. Send the run lengths plus a photo of every corner of the kitchen so we can spot boxed ducts, and tell us whether the sink is staying in the same position. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. 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.