Quartz worktops, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames

32nd of 33 London boroughs, highest first

27th of 33 London boroughs, highest first

Council tax band F or above / 33.9%

Larger kitchens usually mean a run, an island and a tall bank, which is three separate yield problems rather than one. We work them together. Nothing to seal on the day, and nothing to seal later.

Lived in by their owners / 62.4%

Long-term owners often want the worktop to outlast the units around it. That is a reasonable expectation of quartz and an unreasonable one of most other surfaces. None of that changes the material, only the plan for getting it in.

The middle half of our quartz range runs from £150 to £270 per square metre, across 69 colours. On rooms this size the number is set by slab yield: how many pieces come out of a slab, and whether an island needs a second one. Square metreage is the last thing we work out, not the first.

The share of homes that are flats is not even across Richmond upon Thames: of the 20 neighbourhoods we list, it is highest in Hampton Wick at 55%, then North Sheen (53%) and Mortlake (52%), and lowest in Petersham at 21%. Where the kitchen is up a flight, each quartz piece is sized to the stairwell before it is sized to the room.

Kew has the highest share of converted houses of the 20 Richmond upon Thames neighbourhoods we list, at 15%, ahead of St Margarets (14%) and Richmond (14%); Ham has the lowest, at 1%. A conversion usually means a stair that turns and a kitchen made out of another room, so the quartz is cut from a template taken once the units are in.

Free samples are posted for the Worktop Worx quartz collection; other quartz is judged from the slab.