Worktop templating in Longlands

Yes. Longlands is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA15. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. 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. 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.

Wide doorways and level thresholds mean full-length pieces go in whole and the join count comes down to slab length alone. The typical 1930s kitchen sits at the back with a low window over the sink run, so the template records the exact sill height above the units to settle whether an upstand fits or the stone has to die into a window board. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn. Low window sills in the bungalows kill a standard 100mm upstand, so measure sill height at template stage.

Sloping residential roads with drives on most houses, though a few streets narrow sharply toward the railway with little turning space for a long van. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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.

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. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. 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. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. 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.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. 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. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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.