Worktop design and quotation in Stockwell

Yes. Stockwell is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW9, SW8. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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.

Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. The kitchen is usually a long galley in a rear extension or side return, so the run lengths are the first thing we check against slab length — anything beyond roughly three metres either needs a join or a second slab, and that decision alone moves the material figure more than a few extra square metres would. You see it before you commit to anything. Subdivided villas have kitchens fitted into rooms with original cornice and skirting, so the back edge has to be scribed around a skirting that is often 20mm proud at the bottom.

Estate blocks have secure entry, narrow lifts and shared stairs, and the parking courts sit away from the entrances. Villa properties have railed front steps and a lower-ground area entrance that is the only realistic way in for stone. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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 replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation. 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. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. 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. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. 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.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. 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 us the run lengths, plus photos taken walking from the pavement through the hall to the kitchen so we can see the door widths and the stair turn. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Written to be read by whoever is paying.