Worktop templating in Pinner

Yes. Pinner is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA5. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Harrow. 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.

Doorways are low and narrow, which is a genuine constraint on piece length before anything else is considered. Long perimeter runs and an island mean level has to hold across the whole room, so the templater sets a single datum and works every run and the island off it rather than levelling each wall in isolation. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn. In the old village houses nothing is straight and the ceiling may be lower than the slab is long, so check whether the piece can be tilted upright inside the room before it comes off the van.

The High Street and the lanes around it are narrow, sloping and heavily restricted with limited loading windows, so village jobs need an early slot; the surrounding suburban roads have proper driveways and no such problem. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop design & quotation and worktop installation. 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. 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. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. 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. 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 runs and the island carcass fixed down and levelled to one datum, with the sink, tap and hob on site - an island cannot be templated while it is still loose or sitting on packers. 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. No stone is cut from a plan.