Splashbacks and upstands in Aldgate

Yes. Aldgate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC3N, EC3A. It is worked on our City of London run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Panels come across in one pass with the route already cleared. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Every flat on the floor is the same plan handed left and right, so the room is predictable even where the building is not. The plasterboard is genuinely flat here, so a full-height splashback sits well and a slim upstand looks almost redundant, but the sockets are the problem, because they are set out to the developer's original kitchen and often land at odd heights or right on a joint line. What the wall can take decides how tall the stone goes. 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. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. A tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives.

Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. Splashback panels are lighter than a worktop and far more awkward, because a tall thin piece has to be carried on edge and cannot be tilted to clear a turn. A tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Reordered next year, it will not match. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Full height behind the hob is less for a tenant to scrub.

A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. The run decides where that joint falls. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. Scribe the top edge too or it stands off. Any socket you intend to move must be moved and re-plastered before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece of stone. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. One visit for upstands, two for full-height panels.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. Where the wall cannot be made good, setting the stone deliberately proud on a subframe with a shadow gap reads as a detail rather than a bad fit. The sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Standing a three-metre length on end takes more headroom outside the car than inside it, and a low lobby ceiling is what actually stops it. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. Panels are carried on edge from the tail lift to the wall.

A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The lift car, the loading bay and the building manager decide the piece sizes here, not the slab. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The flatter the wall, the taller the stone.

Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Money does not move until the template is done. Developer carcasses are thin cam-lock chipboard, which is entirely adequate under laminate and wants bracing before stone. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Sockets cut in the shop, not on site.