Worktop design and quotation in Nunhead

Yes. Nunhead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE15. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. 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. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. 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 party wall is the straightest surface in the house and everything else has moved away from it over a century. The kitchen is usually a long galley in a rear extension or side return, so the run lengths are the first thing we check against slab length, anything beyond roughly three metres either needs a join or a second slab, and that decision alone moves the material figure more than a few extra square metres would. That is what the itemised lines are for. Rooms here are frequently under 2.4m wide, so the client has to be talked out of an island early or the walkways end up under 900mm.

Steeply graded streets running up towards the cemetery, narrow carriageways with parking both sides, and a lot of houses with a side alley too narrow for a slab trolley, so it is a front-door carry. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. An access-driven join is priced like any other join, and people are always surprised to see one on a dead straight run. It appears as its own line rather than buried in a rate.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop replacement. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. 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. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

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. 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.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. Material is quoted as a supply range and the labour lines separately, because an installed rate per square metre is not a real number. Nothing payable until template.