Worktop design and quotation in Selsdon

Yes. Selsdon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR2. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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.

A side alley and a back door mean most pieces go in whole, and it is the alley width rather than the front door that decides it. Walls between the original room and the extension are frequently out of square, which affects the template but not the price; what does affect it is the appliance list, because a drop-in range, an undermount bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a separate drainer are four separately priced cut-outs. You see it before you commit to anything. Steep front drives here are the recurring nuisance, because a loaded trolley wants to run away downhill and we end up hand-carrying pieces we could otherwise wheel.

Wide inter-war roads with front drives and space to unload, but the ground rises steeply towards Selsdon Wood and some driveways climb hard from the kerb. 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. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop templating. 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. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. 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. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. 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.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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. Send the extension drawing or the unit layout with the actual appliance model numbers, since cut-out sizes come from the appliance, not the cabinet. 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. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Nothing payable until template.