Splashbacks and upstands in Barking

Yes. Barking is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG11. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of the borough. A shared-use bay allows a paid stay up to a set maximum, and that maximum is routinely shorter than the working day the job needs. 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. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. 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. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. 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. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut.

Once a long piece is in on the diagonal there is no room left for anyone else, so it travels up alone and is met on the landing above. 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. Panels are carried on edge from the tail lift to the wall. Camera enforcement gives nobody the chance to explain, where an officer on foot at least sees a tail lift down and stone coming off it. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. A panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. 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. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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. 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. Inventories record the condition of a kitchen at both ends of a tenancy, which is a practical argument for a surface that looks the same in its fifth year as its first. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two budgets, settled before anything is cut.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Pieces get staged in the ground floor lobby and sent up singly, which needs somewhere to stand them where nobody will walk into them. 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. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well.

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. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. External corners are mitred, not butted.

A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. 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. The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in by hand. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. The original larder or store cupboard usually survives in a corner, and that alcove is deeper than the units and squarer than the walls around it. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick.