Worktop design and quotation in Sudbury Hill

Yes. Sudbury Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA1, HA2. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Harrow. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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 stair to the lower ground floor has a turn at the bottom and a low soffit above it, and both are measured before anything is nested. An island a few hundred millimetres over the usable slab length costs a whole second slab, which is worth knowing before the layout is fixed. Priced from the building, not from a rate card. Where a garage has been absorbed, the floor slab is usually lower than the house, so verify the finished unit height on both sides before cutting a continuous top.

The hill is the defining feature: sloping and stepped driveways, retaining walls and front doors above street level, with parking further from the door than the map suggests. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. That is why the fitting line on a quote reflects manpower and time rather than square metres. 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 installation, worktop templating and worktop replacement. 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. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. 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.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. Shape first, area second. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Priced as fabrication, not as area. Send the island size including the overhang and which side people sit at, the stool count, and confirm the edge profile you want and which edges are to receive it. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Every line has a reason next to it.