Worktop templating in Alibon

Yes. Alibon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM10. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These are built in dense concrete, so support for a peninsula or an end panel goes in with proper anchors rather than plugs. Unit height is the other issue: legs sit on an uneven screed or hard concrete with no give, so the template reads the top of every carcass rather than assuming they share a height. No stone is ever cut from a plan. Maisonette stairs here are external and often steep, so we cut to a length two people can carry safely up them rather than the longest possible piece.

Estate roads with easy parking, but maisonette blocks mean an external stair or shared entrance and a first-floor carry with a turn at the top. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The template records it along with everything else.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Appliances on site, not on order.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. One datum for the whole room. 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. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Plotted, not estimated. Every base unit fixed to the wall, packed and levelled, and any dry-lining or patching completed - the template reads the wall face it is given, so that has to be the finished face. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.