Worktop design and quotation in Petts Wood

Yes. Petts Wood is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR5. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. 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 classic arrangement is the original back room with a later extension bolted onto it, so the kitchen is two ages of building in one room. These are typically two runs and a return, often into a rear extension, and the return piece is the awkward one, short, wide and rarely nesting well against the long pieces on the slab, so slab yield rather than total area is what pushes the material line up. That is what the itemised lines are for. The estate is under an Article 4 style design control on the frontages, so the constraint is scheduling around the builder finishing the extension rather than the fit itself.

Front drives on most houses and a side passage on the semis, but the side passages are narrow and often have a gas meter box or bin store in them, so slabs usually go in through the front. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop templating. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. 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. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. 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. 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.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Priced as fabrication, not as area. Send the extension drawing or the unit layout with the actual appliance model numbers, since cut-out sizes come from the appliance, not the cabinet. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. 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.