Granite Worktops on a Supply and Deliver Basis: the Costs of Delivery
Granite worktops (and quartz worktops for that matter) cost money to deliver. It may be obvious, but then we also live in an age of “free delivery”, where delivery costs are included in the price of the product or where people pay extra for the “Prime” delivery service. How and why do we cost in our delivery and extra-distance charges?
This page relates to delivery costs only – for the cost of the product on a Supply and Deliver basis you need to look at this pricing page too. Or just drop us an email or give us a call!
Two of our fitters carrying a Blue Pearl Granite Worktop
The issue is not simply the price of diesel – though it does keep rising! Granite worktops are no ordinary product. With some black slabs weighing in at 95 kg per square metre (30mm thickness), a single long worktop run can weigh 179 kg/394lbs. Two of our fitters will handle that from a van into your house, but at 197 lbs each to carry, it is obvious that this is not a job that “normal people” can take on. And islands can be far bigger and heavier than that. The guys have sets of wheels and special carrying gear, but all the same, sometimes I just don’t know how they achieve what they do!
Add in the fact that many natural stones are fairly fragile, especially once there are cutouts for sinks and hobs, and the specialist nature of granite worktops is all the more obvious. It needs to be carried by people who know it. Even many of our regular building and kitchen clients, people who are strong and able to handle all kinds of materials, tend to steer clear of the stone and leave it all to us.
For anything but the very smallest deliveries we need to send two fitters.
A big Kashmir Gold Granite island in Horsham
How do we cost delivery?
In my work in quartz and granite worktop sales, I work out delivery like this:
- Look up the customer’s address on Google Maps
- Get directions from RH6 0EB (our address)
- Look at the time the guys will take from us to you.
- Double it (they need to come back!)
- Add 15 minutes for the actual delivery
- Multiply the whole thing by the number of men needed to deliver
- Multiply the result by £45 to cover pay, fuel, van wear and tear and insurances etc.
Obviously, there will come a point at which delivery costs just aren’t economical. We can’t take men away from installations for that long, and it has to be a pretty large supply-only job to warrant spending more than £200 on delivery.
We have occasionally used couriers in the past, but very rarely with success. Our product is difficult to handle in terms of weight and shape, and it is relatively fragile. We have lost count of the broken supply-only worktops we have seen – and of the difficulties this creates for disappointed customers who have already paid for the broken product in full.
If a third-party carrier is used, it is best to fully palletise the work and to use a specialist transport company who carry fork-lifts on their lorries and can offer a truly national service. With palletising by our workshop team the total cost is likely to be significantly in excess of £300. For a full kitchen, that may be worthwhile, but it is not appropriate for small jobs.
Here is a worked example. Suppose a rectangular table top is to be taken to a garden of a couple living in Nevill Avenue, Hove, BN3 7NH. If the top is 2.2 metres by 1 metre in Zimbabwe Black granite it will weigh 460 lbs. (I do hope the table support is good!) Two men will be required to deliver that.
So – from Google maps we are looking at just over 40 minutes journey time – 0.68 of an hour.
Two journeys make it 1.36 hours.
Add 0.25 hours to actually bring the stone through into your garden and you have 1.61 hours.
Double that for 2 men and you have 3.22 man hours.
Multiple by £45 and you have £145 to deliver the table top.
