Worktop templating in Whalebone

Yes. Whalebone is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM8. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. 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. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. 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.

Walls are dense block or in-situ concrete with a bonded plaster, so the bottom course of tiles brings plaster with it when the old top comes off. Carcass heights are read individually, since legs bottoming out on concrete mean the units do not share one plane. No stone is ever cut from a plan. Because the stock alternates between private and estate-built houses on the same street, we always measure rather than working from a house type.

Residential streets with a good share of dropped kerbs, but Whalebone Lane itself is a heavily used north-south route where stopping a van is not practical. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. That is part of what the visit is for. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. 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. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. 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.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the laser plots the intermediate points. The laser plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. Every base unit fixed to the wall, packed and levelled with the laser, and any dry-lining or patching completed - the template reads the wall face it is given, so that has to be the finished face. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Appliances on site, not on order.