Worktop design and quotation in South Acton

Yes. South Acton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W3. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Tell us at enquiry stage and it is priced properly, because a crew stood waiting is the most expensive thing on any job. 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.

Low-rise blocks are three or four storeys with a single stair and no lift, so pieces go up on edge and the half-landing sets the maximum length. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same day's work whether the kitchen is five square metres or eight, so on a small kitchen they are a larger share of the total, and one slab covers the lot, which makes the material band the main lever you actually control. Priced from the building, not from a rate card. The road layout changes as the phases move, so confirm the current access route in the week of the fit rather than relying on the survey visit.

A large estate under phased construction, so hoardings, site traffic and changing road layouts. Blocks have goods lifts, but access is arranged through the managing agent rather than the resident. 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. 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. It appears as its own line rather than buried in a rate.

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 splashbacks & upstands. 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. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. 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. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. 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.

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 run lengths plus a photo of every corner of the kitchen so we can spot boxed ducts, and tell us whether the sink is staying in the same position. 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. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Nothing payable until template.