Worktop templating in Raynes Park

Yes. Raynes Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW20. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Merton. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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.

An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. The sill height over the sink is settled on site, because there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. Two to three hours, once the units are in. 1930s houses almost always have a chimney breast or a flue in the corner of the old kitchen, so the return leg needs a notched back edge rather than a straight cut.

Most houses have a drive or hardstanding, which makes staging easy, but the railway bridge and the level crossings on the Kingston side determine which way a long van can approach. Side gates are usually just over 800mm, so a slab travels edge-on down the flank. Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The template records it along with everything else.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. 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.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. 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 breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.