Worktop templating in Chadwell Heath

Yes. Chadwell Heath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM6. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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.

The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. Victorian party walls and chimney-breast returns bow along their length, so the template plots the real line rather than assuming a straight one - the laser picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Getting a slab off the High Road is never sensible here, so the template visit includes picking the side street we will actually unload on.

The High Road is a busy A-road with restrictions and bus traffic, so unloading is done on the side streets; those side streets have a decent proportion of driveways once you are away from the station. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The laser records it along with everything else. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop replacement. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. A second kitchen or a kitchenette in an annexe is a small job with the same fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines as a large one. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Appliances on site, not on order.

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. 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.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. 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. Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. Appliances on site, not on order.