Worktop templating in Shad Thames

Yes. Shad Thames is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE1. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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.

Original brickwork is uneven by ten millimetres or more across a bay, so the back edge is scribed to the actual face rather than to a line. Exposed brick and steel is the whole job here: the brick face is not a flat plane, it moves in and out over its height and along its length, so the scribe is taken at the exact height the worktop will sit rather than off the wall generally. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Measure the lift and the stair turn before you cut anything - a slab that fits the kitchen but not the lift is a wasted day here.

The street itself is cobbled and shaded by the overhead gantry bridges with no room to park a van beside the door; lifts are small original goods lifts or tight passenger cars, so oversized pieces have to be planned to fit the car diagonally or go up the stairs on edge. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. 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.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop fabrication and worktop installation. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

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. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. 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.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Plotted, not estimated. Units fixed and levelled, all steelwork and brick cleaned, sealed and finished, and any boarded sections completed to final thickness so the template picks up the surface the stone will actually meet. Where the owner is not local, the decisions happen remotely, so photographs and a clear itemised drawing carry more weight than a showroom visit ever would. 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.