Worktop templating in Royal Arsenal Riverside

Yes. Royal Arsenal Riverside is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE18. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Boxed soil stacks and ventilation ducts run behind the units, and the boxing depth changes between floor level and worktop height. The room is square and the plasterboard is not, so the internal corner is recorded as it is rather than as ninety degrees. No stone is ever cut from a plan. In the listed blocks you often can't chase or drill historic walls, so upstands and end supports have to be carried by the units alone.

A gated estate with a barrier, controlled vehicle access and time-limited loading arranged through estate management; the listed conversions add restrictions on what can be fixed into original brickwork. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. 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.

Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. Plotted, not estimated. Boards taped or skimmed and finished, units fixed back to the wall and levelled off, and the appliances on site - the wall must be at its final thickness on template day, so no tiler or splashback fitter gets ahead of the worktop. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. 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.