Worktop design and quotation in Green Street Green

Yes. Green Street Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR6. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. 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.

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. Utility runs in converted garages sit on a different floor level to the kitchen, so we template the two areas as separate jobs even when it is one continuous cabinet line on the drawing.

Cul-de-sac layouts with turning heads, so the van can get right to the door, but garage-side entrances have a step and a fire door that limits swing. 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. 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. You see that figure before we template, not after. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. 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. 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. Nothing payable until we template.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. No installed rate per square metre, because it is not a real number. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Photographs are worth more than a plan here. 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. Nothing payable until template.