Worktop design and quotation in Malden Rushett

Yes. Malden Rushett is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT9. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. 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. 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.

The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. The quote separates the joins the run needs from the joins the route forces, because they are different decisions with the same price. That is what the itemised lines are for. Cottage walls here are rubble or soft brick and nowhere near plumb, so upstands and end scribes take longer than the run itself.

Semi-rural approach on fast single-carriageway roads with no pavement in places, gravel and unmade drives, and gates that a long-wheelbase van cannot swing into without dropping the load at the roadside. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. 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. You see that figure before we template, not after.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop templating. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. 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.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Better on the quote than in a variation. Send us the run lengths, plus photos taken walking from the pavement through the hall to the kitchen so we can see the door widths and the stair turn. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. 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.