Worktop templating in Furzedown

Yes. Furzedown is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW17, SW16. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. 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. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. Where the room has been knocked through to the dining room or opened into a later extension, the two floors rarely sit at the same level and the whole opening has to be shot across from one datum. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Where a utility is partitioned off, the two rooms usually want the same material but different thicknesses, confirm which side takes the offcuts before the slab is laid out.

The area sits inside a loop of main roads with limited through routes, so satnav approaches often fail and the van has to come in from Mitcham Lane or Tooting Bec Road. Once inside, parking pressure is moderate and most houses have a front path. 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. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. The template records it along with everything else.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop fabrication and worktop replacement. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first. 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. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Appliances on site, not on order.

Three runs means two internal corners, and each corner is a decision about mitre or butt joint before anything is nested. 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 chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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. 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. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.