Worktop templating in Gipsy Hill

Yes. Gipsy Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE19, SE27. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. 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.

A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. Concrete and dense block walls in ex-council stock cannot be chased back or packed out to suit, so the template takes the wall exactly as it is and the stone carries the scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Split-level layouts mean the kitchen floor and the adjoining room floor are different heights, so set the datum in the kitchen itself and never carry a level through from the hall.

Roads climb sharply with tight bends and limited turning space, so a long van has to plan the route in and out. Front approaches are frequently down steps to a lower entrance, and the combination of gradient and steps rules out trolleys. 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. That is part of what the visit is for.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement and worktop installation. 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. 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.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. 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.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. No stone is cut from a plan.