Worktop design and quotation in Aldborough Hatch

Yes. Aldborough Hatch is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG2. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. 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. Nothing here is added after the fact. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls look modern and are not: block or breeze with a skim that has been patched over decades, so dry-laying and scribing still apply. With little square metreage to spread them over, the cut-outs and the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines carry the quote, so each one is listed separately rather than buried in a rate. You see it before you commit to anything. The older properties out here have uneven floors, so levelling the base units properly matters more than usual before any stone goes down.

Semi-rural feel with verges, unrestricted parking and generous frontages, so unloading is easy; the older cottages have low door heads and narrow openings that dictate how a slab is carried in. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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. You see that figure before we template, not after. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop installation 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Nothing payable until we template. 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. Nothing payable until we template.

With three walls in play the chance of one of them being out of square is high, and the template has to carry all three angles. 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.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. It is fabrication time rather than material, so it appears on the fabrication line and not in the square metre figure. Photographs are worth more than a plan here. Tell us whether there is side or rear access to the kitchen from outside, and send the run lengths with a photo of the window and boiler positions. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. 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.