Worktop templating in Woolwich Dockyard

Yes. Woolwich Dockyard is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE18. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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.

Floors are suspended timber over a shallow void and have moved, so the units are packed and levelled before anything is set on them. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. No stone is ever cut from a plan. Expect to work around a wall-hung combi and a back door — usable run is often a metre shorter than the room suggests.

Narrow streets running down toward the river with parking on both sides and a couple of routes severed by the rail line; short carries, but rarely anywhere legal to stop for long. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. 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. 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. 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 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. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. 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.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The laser 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 packed level over the sloping floor, walls replastered and dry at their final thickness (tiling and splashbacks go on after the worktop, never before), and the sink, tap and hob physically on site, with a Belfast sink built in and set at its finished height. 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. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. No stone is cut from a plan.