Worktop templating in Harold Wood

Yes. Harold Wood is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. 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.

These kitchens have been retiled at least twice, and stripping the tiles takes the bottom band of plaster with them because the old laminate ran underneath rather than up to them. The sill height over the sink is settled on site, because there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. Two to three hours, once the units are in. New-build carcasses on the modern estates are often lightweight and not designed for stone, so we brace and level them before loading a 20mm slab onto them.

Older streets have drives and dropped kerbs; the new development has narrow shared-surface roads, allocated bays and parking enforcement, so we book a slot rather than assume a space. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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. 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. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Appliances on site, not on order.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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.

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. Plotted, not estimated. 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. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.