Worktop templating in Ilford

Yes. Ilford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG1. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. 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.

Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. The template plots the bow along the back of the run, which is why a tape reading taken beforehand never matches. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn. Assume no kerbside parking outside the door, we plan Ilford jobs around a suspension or an early start, and anything over 3m gets checked against the hallway dogleg before it is cut.

Ilford Lane and the roads off Cranbrook Road are permit-controlled and parked solid both sides, so a slab often comes in on foot from a suspended bay round the corner. New-build blocks mean lift access, booked loading bays and a building manager who wants notice in writing. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop replacement. 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. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Appliances on site, not on order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. 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 corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.