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 worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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.

Base units from the seventies and eighties are often only 500mm deep, so a 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors want checking against it. With little area to spread them over, the cut-outs and the fixed lines carry the quote, so each is listed on its own. Priced from the building, not from a rate card. 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. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. 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.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Priced as fabrication, not as area. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. 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.