Worktop templating in Goodmayes

Yes. Goodmayes is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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.

The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. 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. Range cookers dominate here and the cut-outs sit close to end walls, so we check the actual cooker width on site instead of working off the plan measurement.

Mixed: terraces on the south side with kerbside-only unloading, and 1930s roads to the north where most houses have a crossover and a hardstanding to park on. Rear extensions usually leave a usable side alley of around a metre. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The template records it along with everything else.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

A U shape uses more linear metres than people expect, and the two returns rarely nest together, so a second slab is a genuine possibility. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. Plotted, not estimated. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.