Splashbacks and upstands in Ashburton

Yes. Ashburton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. 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. 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. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. A bowed wall is what decides between an upstand and a panel. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. 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. Full height wants a flat wall behind it.

A carpeted hall runs a trolley badly, so a heavy piece is carried rather than rolled from the threshold in. 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. It decides panel size before anything is cut. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop replacement ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut as a set, so one can replace another. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The offcuts finish the room.

The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. 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. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. 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. Each obstruction is another joint, and it is priced as one. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two trades, two budgets, one drawing.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The back door frequently opens straight into the kitchen, which is the best carry route in the house and the one people forget to mention. Where a full-height panel is wanted, the wall is made good first or the panel rocks on the high spots. Dry lining behind a panel needs a fixing plan of its own.

A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. 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.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The panel takes its height off the steel.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. The hall is the only way in and out for whoever lives there, so it is cleared and then kept clear for as long as pieces are moving. 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. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day.