Worktop templating in Hampton Hill

Yes. Hampton Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW12. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. Two hours is the realistic figure. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The stair from the street is narrow with a tight turn at the top, which caps piece length well below anything the run itself needs. Runs commonly finish at a doorway, and the architrave and skirting stand proud of the plaster, so the end of the top is notched or stopped on the drawing. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Flats above the shops have a stair with a tight top landing, so anything over 2.4m has to be jointed - measure the landing, not just the stair width.

High Street loading is timed and the parade is busy, so flats above shops mean a street door, a straight steep stair and a right-angle turn at the top; the residential roads behind have driveways and are far easier. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. 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. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. 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.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. Units fixed, packed level and pushed as far back as the leaning wall allows, walls made good to final thickness with tiling left until after the worktop, and the sink, tap and hob on site so cut-outs are set from the real items. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. No stone is cut from a plan.