Worktop templating in New Cross

Yes. New Cross is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE14. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. 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.

Lease conditions and the other flats in the building decide when noisy work can happen, so the fitting day has a start and a finish that are not ours to set. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn. Landlord and HMO work here wants a hard-wearing, easily replaced run, not a book-matched island.

The main road junctions are heavy with traffic and red-route restrictions, so unloading happens on the side streets, and many terraces have steps up to a raised front door. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Batching several kitchens together is the one situation where buying a whole slab is cheaper per kitchen rather than more expensive. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Appliances on site, not on order. A licensed shared house has fire-door and escape-route rules that decide how and when stone can be carried through the common parts. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

The step or level change between the original room and the return is real, and the units need packing before stone goes across it. 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.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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. A let property is specified for durability and for a fixed window, and both of those are legitimate reasons to choose differently. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan.