Worktop templating in London Fields

Yes. London Fields is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E8. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. Streets near a ground or a venue have restrictions that come and go with the fixture list rather than with the time of day. 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.

A semi has a side passage, and whether it is wide enough to carry a piece flat and turn it in at the back door is the first thing worth measuring. The template plots the bow along the back of the run, which is why a tape reading taken beforehand never matches. No stone is ever cut from a plan. On extension jobs check for a side gate first, because going in through the garden avoids the hall and the stair entirely and makes a one-piece island top possible.

The streets around the park are permit-only, filtered and busy with pedestrians and cyclists, and market days make the Broadway Market end effectively impassable for a van. Extension jobs usually allow a carry through the house or via a side gate straight into the rear. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop design & quotation. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Appliances on site, not on order. 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. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

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. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. The drawing leaves site complete. 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. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan.