Kitchen worktops in East Barnet

Yes. Interwar suburbia around the village, where the standard job is a rear extension with bifolds giving an open kitchen-diner, a 4m run under a roof light and an island of about 2.4m. Utilities are usually squeezed into a side return or the old kitchen doorway rather than being purpose-built. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

1930s semi, 1930s detached and post-war maisonette. Solid brick with a render coat is firm to work against and out of plumb, so the scribe at worktop height is different from the one at plinth level. The sill height over the sink is settled on site, because there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. No stone is ever cut from a plan.

Wide residential roads with dropped kerbs and drives, decent side gates, and the valley of the brook meaning some roads dip steeply; the village centre itself has short-stay parking only. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop installation, worktop templating and worktop design & quotation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. New extensions here are often templated too early, before the floor screed has been laid, and the resulting unit height change is the commonest cause of a remake.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. 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. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Photographs are worth more than a plan here. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. One visit, our own installers. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.