Splashbacks and upstands in Balham

Yes. Balham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW12. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Where the van has to move, the panels come in first. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Electrics went in at conversion, some in surface trunking and some chased into lath and plaster, so no cable route in these rooms is safe to assume. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. The age of the plaster decides the fixing, not the finish. 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 usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut.

A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. 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. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Grout lines are the first thing to fail in a let. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. 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 panel seam sits over the worktop seam. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. 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. A breast return is scribed on three edges. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. 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.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Nothing this long gets walked while a warden is circling.

A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Lath and plaster, a settled floor and a hall with a turn in it are the three things that decide how this job runs. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. The tile line that was there proves nothing about level.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. 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.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. 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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. External corners are mitred, not butted.