Worktop templating in Dagenham Village

Yes. Dagenham Village 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. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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.

An ex-council house is solidly built to a standard plan, with the kitchen at the rear and a back door next to it. 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. In the older village properties the door heads are low and the openings narrow, so slab height off the trolley has to be checked before we try to bring a piece in upright.

Village-scale lanes near the church with limited parking, opening out into standard estate roads with front gardens and easy standing a street away. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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 installation and worktop replacement. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. The drawing leaves site complete. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. 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.