Worktop templating in Bromley Common

Yes. Bromley Common is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR2. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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.

There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. The typical 1930s kitchen sits at the back with a low window over the sink run, so the template records the exact sill height above the units to settle whether an upstand fits or the stone has to die into a window board. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Boiler pipework and a back door swing eat into the run here, so the template has to work around fixed services rather than the other way round.

Front gardens converted to hardstanding on the private roads make it easy, but the ex-local-authority terraces have shared paths and no vehicle access to the rear, so it is a front-door carry through a narrow hall. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. 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. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. All base units in, including anything standing on the later extension slab, walls skimmed to final thickness, and the sink, tap and hob delivered so cut-outs and tap centres are set from the actual items. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.