Splashbacks and upstands in Bexleyheath

Yes. Bexleyheath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA6, DA7. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The original floor is timber over a deep ventilated void with air bricks right round the perimeter, and the extension slab butts straight up against it. 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. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. 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. The panel takes its height off the steel.

The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone 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. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Panels for every unit, cut in one go.

Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. 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. External corners are mitred, not butted. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. 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.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does.

A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. 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. An aisle under a metre stops being a working space the moment two people are in it, and the depth of the tops either side is what decides whether that happens. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Panel height is set by the extractor.

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. A serving hatch through to the dining room is common, and closing one up leaves a panel of newer wall exactly where the run passes. 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.

What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Where the original steel windows survive at the rear, the frame sits almost flush with the inside face and there is no reveal to lose a joint in. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return.