Worktop design and quotation in Knightsbridge

Yes. Knightsbridge is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1X. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Where a bay suspension or a permit is needed, that is a real cost and it goes on the quote instead of appearing later. You are told before you commit to a date. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These kitchens are full of boxed soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing usually stops short of the ceiling. The building rather than the kitchen is what you are paying for here, so template, fabrication and fitting are broken out separately. Priced from the building, not from a rate card. Nothing gets cut on site in these buildings, so the template must be dimensionally exact including appliance clearances - one wrong cut-out means a full replacement slab, not a rework.

Buildings run 24-hour security and a strict delivery protocol - vehicle booked in, ID for every fitter, protection down through the lobby and lift, and noisy works restricted to a defined window. Some buildings insist all cutting happens off site with zero exceptions. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. That is why the fitting line on a quote reflects manpower and time rather than square metres. Nothing about it gets estimated after the fact.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication and worktop installation. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. 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. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. 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.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Better on the quote than in a variation. Measure the internal lift car, width, depth and height, and photograph the stair turn and landing doors, then send those with the run lengths. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. Material is quoted as a supply range and the labour lines separately, because an installed rate per square metre is not a real number. Written to be read by whoever is paying.