Worktop templating in Crystal Palace

Yes. Crystal Palace is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE19, SE20. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. Two hours is the realistic figure. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These kitchens are big rooms with long perimeter runs and an island, so level has to hold across the whole floor rather than along one wall. The island is templated for its overhang, its support and the position of the hob or sink within it, with sockets and any pop-up left where they will genuinely be. No stone is ever cut from a plan. Sash windows sitting almost on the worktop line mean the upstand has to stop and return at the reveal, which needs proper detailing rather than a cut-off at the sill.

Very steep hills, red routes and bus lanes on the main roads, and permit parking on the side streets. Upper-floor flats in converted villas often have three flights and a narrow original stair. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Appliances on site, not on order.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. 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 boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. All runs and the island carcass fixed down and levelled to one datum, with the sink, tap and hob on site - an island cannot be templated while it is still loose or sitting on packers. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan.