Worktop design and quotation in Aldgate

Yes. Aldgate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC3N, EC3A. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. 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.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard bellies at a taped internal angle, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. This is usually the cheapest stock we fit: the room is square, walls are plumb, the lift works and the corridors are clear, so fitting time is predictable and we rarely add a join for access. Priced from the building, not from a rate card. Straight swaps onto existing carcases still need the carcase levels checked, because developer units settle and a 3m top will rock on units that were only shimmed once.

The Aldgate gyratory and its approaches are red route with no stopping, so everything goes through a basement service yard with a height barrier or a booked bay at the building entrance. Tower blocks run full contractor control - induction, insurance, permit to work, booked goods lift and a lift protection kit fitted before the first piece moves. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. An access-driven join is priced like any other join, and people are always surprised to see one on a dead straight run. Nothing about it gets estimated after the fact. 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 replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. 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. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. 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. 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. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Nothing payable until we template.

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. Each run is priced on its own line against the supply rate, with the join count and the reason for each join stated. 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.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. Send photographs of every corner of the room and it gets priced properly first time. Photographs are worth more than a plan here. Send a floor plan with the run lengths and confirm whether the existing units and sink are staying, along with the goods lift or loading bay rules if the building has any. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Written to be read by whoever is paying.