Worktop templating in Freezywater

Yes. Freezywater is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EN3. It is run from the Watford side, covering Hertfordshire & North London. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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.

An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. 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 laser has to be shot across the whole opening from one datum. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Utility tops here almost always need a cut-out for a plumbed-in washer and a butler sink at a different height to the main kitchen - confirm the two heights separately at template.

Straightforward - driveways, dropped kerbs and low front walls. The A10 and Bullsmoor Lane are fast roads with no stopping, so approach from the residential side. 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. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. 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. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. 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.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Appliances on site, not on order.