Worktop design and quotation in Old Oak and College Park

Yes. Old Oak and College Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW10. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. Where an event closes the road entirely, the van cannot be moved once it is in, which is a different problem from not being able to park at all. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. It is one line among the others, and it is honest. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Deep original skirting is often left in behind the units, standing them off the wall, so the back edge of the stone is plotted where the carcasses actually sit. The second thing is the carry route: front door, narrow hall, a turn at the stairs and often a step down into the extension, which can mean a piece that would template in one length has to be split to physically get into the room. That is what the itemised lines are for. Access here fails on the approach rather than the property, so confirm the road is open before the van leaves the yard.

The area is boxed in by railway lines, the canal and the A40, so there are only a handful of ways in and construction traffic for the wider regeneration regularly reroutes them - check the route the morning of, not the week before. On the older terraces the streets are narrow with parking both sides and no loading bays at all. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. That is why the fitting line on a quote reflects manpower and time rather than square metres. You see that figure before we template, not after.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. 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. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Nothing payable until we template. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything 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. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. 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.

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. 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. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. 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.