Worktop design and quotation in Harold Hill

Yes. Harold Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. 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.

Many have been extended at the rear since being sold, so the kitchen is half original and half newer with a floor junction between the two. 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. That is what the itemised lines are for. Original walls on this estate are rarely straight or true, so the scribe allowance goes up and we never cut a return to a nominal dimension.

Open estate roads with verges, front gardens and generally unrestricted parking, plus rear pathways between blocks, so unloading is rarely the problem here. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. 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. 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 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. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. 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. 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. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Nothing payable until we template.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. 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.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. 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. Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. 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.