Splashbacks and upstands in Arnos Grove

Yes. Arnos Grove is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N11, N14. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Enfield. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The kitchen was a service room at the back of the flat, so it is a long way from the front door along a corridor with two turns in it. Mansion block kitchens are full of boxed-in soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing is usually plywood or plasterboard that stops short of the ceiling, so the splashback run gets broken up by returns rather than running clean wall to wall. Decided before fabrication starts. 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. 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.

A handrail that has to come off before a piece will pass is twenty minutes at the start of the day, and it goes back on the wall before we leave. 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 door frame catches a tall panel long before a short one. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Full height behind the hob is less for a tenant to scrub. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Grout lines are the first thing to fail in a let.

Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. 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. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

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. 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. The riser boxing must be finished in its final form and any access panel positions agreed before the template, since the stone is set out around them. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Plastering finishes on somebody else’s timescale.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. Floors are solid concrete under a screed, so nothing is packed by driving a fixing in and everything is packed by shimming. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. A chimney breast breaks a panel run regardless of the drawing.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Spindles and a newel cap stand proud of the string, so the usable width on a turn is measured to the handrail rather than to the wall behind 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. Joint positions follow from that.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The top step is rarely the end of it, because a door swinging out onto the landing has to be held back before a piece can come off the flight. Panels travel on edge in a frame, and the frame needs the same clearance the finished piece does. It decides panel size before anything is cut.

A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. The panel seam sits over the worktop seam.