What it is called, by market
One concept, four markets. Where a name means something else locally, the card says so rather than leaving you to find out on site.
United Statesyours
Same thingcountertop
also counter
Canada
Same thingcountertop
also counter
United Kingdom
Same thingworktop
also work surface
Australia
Same word, different thingbenchtop
also bench
"Bench" elsewhere on site means a cut step in a slope, or a level reference — not a kitchen surface.
Calculators for this
Each works in either measurement system, and the terminology on the page follows whichever market you have selected.
Frequently asked questions
- Does "bench" mean the same thing in Australia?
- In a kitchen, yes — the Australian word for the working surface is benchtop, and "the bench" is that surface. Elsewhere on a building site the word keeps its ordinary meanings, so context settles it: a bench in earthworks is a horizontal step cut into a slope to stabilise it or to give plant a working platform, and a benchmark is a fixed level reference. Neither is the kitchen sense. The risk is negligible on a drawing and real in a written scope of works, where an unqualified "bench" can be read three ways — which is why "benchtop" is the term worth using in a document that will be read across markets.
- How is a worktop measured for ordering?
- By the run length rather than the area, because it is supplied in lengths of a fixed depth and the depth is rarely the variable. The quantity is the sum of the runs, plus the allowance for joints, plus whatever the cut-outs cost — a sink and a hob are cut from the material rather than saved from it, so they add nothing back. Corners are where the arithmetic stops being linear: a mitred or masons-mitre corner consumes extra length from both pieces, and an L or U shaped kitchen can need noticeably more material than the sum of its wall lengths. Overhangs at a breakfast bar, and the end panels, are the two items most often left out.
- Does the material change what the word means?
- No, but it changes what is being quoted, and that catches people more often than the word does. Worktop, countertop and benchtop all name the same position regardless of what it is made of — laminate, solid timber, engineered stone, natural stone, stainless steel — but the supply and fixing are completely different between them. A laminate top is supplied in lengths and cut on site; a stone top is templated after the units are fitted and delivered as finished pieces with the cut-outs already made, which is a separate visit and a longer programme. So a quotation for one material is not comparable to a quotation for another even at the same price per length, because what is included differs.