Kitchen worktops in Keston

Yes. Semi-rural plots with very large kitchens, frequently a full knock-through with an island over 3m, a range cooker recess and a separate utility and pantry. A fair number are full rebuilds where the kitchen is specified from plan rather than replaced. 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. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The day is built around that window.

large detached, 1930s country-style detached, modern replacement house and converted cottage. A period cottage has low ceilings, thick rubble-filled walls and a floor that has never been level, and the worktop is the thing that has to look straight. Big islands are what drive the number. That is what the itemised lines are for.

Long private drives, deep gravel and unlit lanes off the Westerham Road. Gravel is the real problem, because a loaded A-frame trolley sinks in it and everything has to be carried. 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.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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. On gravel drives we ask for boards down or park on the lane and carry, and we allow for the extra time in the fit rather than rushing it.

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. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Priced as fabrication, not as area. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

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. 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. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.