How to Send an Existing Kitchen Plan for a Second Quotation

Most kitchens are quoted once. The buyer takes the first price they are given, trims a little off the appliance list and orders. That works perfectly well when the first quotation is complete and correctly specified. It works badly when it is not — and the only way to know which one you are holding is to have somebody else price the same kitchen.

Getting a second quotation is not disloyalty to your existing supplier. It is a check on the specification. Done properly it costs you very little time, because the difficult part — the measuring and the layout — has already been done.

Why a second quotation is worth getting

Three useful things come out of a second quote, and only one of them is the price.

The price itself. A single quotation gives you no scale. You cannot tell whether a figure is competitive without something to hold it against, and your instinct about what a kitchen ought to cost is almost always shaped by the last one you bought, not this one.

The specification check. A second supplier reading your plan will make different assumptions about the same drawing. Where those assumptions differ from the first supplier's, you learn something: usually that a decision has been made on your behalf without anybody telling you.

The omission check. This is the one that saves real money. Items appearing on one quotation and not the other are the items nobody has explicitly agreed. A missing end panel, an under-ordered run of plinth or a forgotten upstand does not surface until fitting week, when it gets bought at whatever price is available on the day.

Do not treat it as a haggling exercise

If all you want is a number to wave at your existing supplier, say so — it wastes less of everyone's time. A genuinely useful second quotation takes real work at the other end: somebody has to read the plan, count the cabinets, check the appliance housings against the actual models and work out how many lengths of worktop the runs need. Ask for it because you want the specification examined, and you will get far more out of it.

What to send

Three documents cover nearly every case.

• The plan or layout drawing. A CAD elevation, a designer's printout, a scanned sketch with dimensions on it — all fine. What matters is that wall lengths and cabinet positions are readable.
• The itemised quotation you already hold. Line items, not the summary page. If your existing quotation only shows a total, that is itself worth knowing.
• Anything already fixed. Door style and colour, appliance makes and models, worktop décor, handle choice, whether the sink is inset or undermounted.

Add two practical details and you have everything needed: the delivery postcode, and whether you want cabinets supplied fully rigid or flat-packed. Those two change the quotation more than most people expect. Rigid cabinets arrive built and glued, which saves a great deal of site time — there is more detail on rigid assembly — but they take more van space, which matters when you are working out access.

If you do not have a plan at all, or the one you have is a sketch on the back of a job sheet, start with the free kitchen planning service or send us your plan in whatever state it is in. For anything with more than one kitchen in it, use the project submission form instead so the whole job is priced together.

Why like-for-like matters

Two quotations for “the same kitchen” are almost never for the same kitchen. The differences are rarely dishonest. They are the accumulated effect of dozens of small decisions taken by whoever built the quotation, each defensible on its own and none of them flagged to you.

Where substitutions hide

Carcass construction. Rigid and flat-packed cabinets are different products with different prices. So is a carcass with a different board thickness or a different back panel. If one quotation is flat-pack and the other rigid, the cheaper one is not cheaper — it is a different scope of supply, and the difference gets paid for in labour.

Doors. A door style with the same name from two different ranges is not necessarily the same door. Check the finish, the colour name and the material. Slab, shaker and handleless doors are priced quite differently, which is why it is worth being explicit about which family you are in — slab, shaker or handleless. Browse the full kitchen doors range if you need to pin a colour down by name.

Worktop quantity. This is the most common quiet difference of all. Worktops are supplied as pre-finished lengths, so three separate 2.4m runs and one continuous 7.2m run need different amounts of board. A quotation that has assumed fewer lengths, or a shorter length that will not actually reach, looks cheaper on paper and is not. Check the décor, the profile — postformed or square-edged — and the number of pieces on the worktops line.

Hardware and finishing items. Handles are counted per door and per drawer front, so the number is always higher than the cabinet count. End panels, plinth, cornice and pelmet do not appear obviously on a drawing, and are the first things to fall off a list. Compare the handles line and the panels line carefully.

Appliances. Model numbers, not descriptions. “Integrated oven” covers a very wide price range, and the model determines the housing, the aperture and often the worktop cut-out. Check every model on the appliances list, particularly ovens and hobs where a substitution changes what the cabinet in front of it has to be.

Comparing two quotations line by line

Put the two documents side by side and work down this list. It takes about twenty minutes and it is the highest-value twenty minutes in the whole purchase.

What to ask when something looks cheaper

A lower line is not automatically a worse product. It is a question. These are the ones worth asking, and any competent supplier will answer them straight away.

• Is this cabinet supplied rigid or flat-packed, and is that the same on both quotations?
• What is the carcass board thickness, and what is the back panel?
• Is the door the same range and the same colour name, or a similar-looking equivalent?
• How many worktop lengths are included, and will they physically cover the runs on my plan?
• Are hinges, drawer boxes and waste kits in the price or extra?
• Is every appliance the exact model I specified, or has anything been swapped?
• What is excluded, and what will I have to buy separately on the week of the fit?

If a supplier will not itemise, that is your answer. A total on its own cannot be compared to anything.

How Brooklands prices against an existing quotation

Send the plan and the quotation you already hold and Brooklands will price the same kitchen line by line, using the same cabinet types, so the two documents can be read against each other without translation. Where our assumptions differ from your existing supplier's, we say so on the quotation rather than burying it — usually it is a worktop quantity, an appliance housing that will not take the model specified, or a set of panels nobody has counted.

Trade and project pricing is assessed individually according to the products, quantities and requirements of each project. Quotations are free and carry no obligation, there is no minimum order or minimum project size, and we aim to reply within one working day.

It is worth knowing where the published bundle deals sit before you compare anything, because a complete kitchen bundle gives you a real benchmark for what a full room of cabinets, doors and worktop costs. Prices and promotional inclusions change, so check the current position on the collection rather than working from an old figure.

One thing to be clear about on both quotations: Brooklands supplies material. We do not cut, joint, template or fabricate worktops, and we do not install kitchens. Those happen on site. If your existing quotation includes fitting, strip that element out before you compare the two totals or you will be comparing different things.

Frequently asked questions