Worktop templating in Streatham Vale

Yes. Streatham Vale is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW16. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. 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.

Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. Where the room has been knocked through to the dining room or opened into a later extension, the two floors rarely sit at the same level and the whole opening has to be shot across from one datum. Two to three hours, once the units are in. These houses almost all still have the original back-boiler flue or a boxed vertical duct in the kitchen corner, so allow for a notched return leg as a matter of course.

Streets are quieter and largely uncontrolled compared with the Streatham high road, and many houses have hardstanding or a dropped kerb. The railway line and the limited crossings mean the approach route needs checking, and side alleys are around 780mm at the gate. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Appliances on site, not on order.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. 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.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. 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. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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.