Worktop templating in Earl's Court

Yes. Earl's Court is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW5. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. 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.

Lease conditions and the other flats in the building decide when noisy work can happen, so the fitting day has a start and a finish that are not ours to set. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn. Expect a fifth or sixth-floor walk-up with no lift at least once a month here, and price the labour honestly rather than discovering it at delivery.

High density of flats above shops and above each other means communal front doors, no lift in most stucco conversions, and steep original stairs with a half-landing window that dictates the maximum length you can swing. Kerbside is under permit and CPZ control with heavy competition, and the one-way system around the old exhibition site adds a long approach. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Where a single building holds several small kitchens, the work arrives as one job rather than four, and it should be cut off the same slab run so the batches genuinely match. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Batching several kitchens together is the one situation where buying a whole slab is cheaper per kitchen rather than more expensive. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. 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.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. Units fixed and packed level over the sloping floor, walls replastered and dry at their final thickness (tiling and splashbacks go on after the worktop, never before), and the sink, tap and hob physically on site, with a Belfast sink built in and set at its finished height. A let property is specified for durability and for a fixed window, and both of those are legitimate reasons to choose differently. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan.