Worktop design and quotation in Heath Park

Yes. Heath Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM2, RM11. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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.

Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. Walls between the original room and the extension are frequently out of square, which affects the template but not the price; what does affect it is the appliance list, because a drop-in range, an undermount bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a separate drainer are four separately priced cut-outs. That is what the itemised lines are for. Window sills in stone are asked for on most jobs here, so we measure the reveal depth at template, the recesses in these houses vary house to house.

Ordinary suburban streets, generally with a crossover and space for one car on the front, but the roads are narrower than the Gidea Park side and a van on the kerb blocks a lane. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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 installation, worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. 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. 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. 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.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. Slab yield is worked out at quote stage, so if the layout forces a second slab you hear it before you commit rather than after. 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.

A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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 extension drawing or the unit layout with the actual appliance model numbers, since cut-out sizes come from the appliance, not the cabinet. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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.