Splashbacks and upstands in Blackfriars

Yes. Blackfriars is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC4V, EC4Y. It is worked on our the City run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. One trip is always better than three. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A riverside block is a managed building with a booked goods lift, a loading bay and a concierge, and all three have to line up on the same day. The plasterboard is flat enough for a full-height panel; it is the socket positions that cause the trouble. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Riverside peninsulas are seen from three sides, so pay for the extra polished edge and end profile rather than leaving a sawn edge facing the room.

Queen Victoria Street and the Embankment approaches are red route and bus-heavy with no stopping, so unloading is into a building's own basement bay or a booked side-street window, not the main road. Most buildings run a security desk with contractor sign-in, and the goods lift needs booking a few days ahead. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. 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.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop fabrication and worktop replacement. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. 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. Same batch, same run, same day. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets final before template.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. Any socket you intend to move must be moved and re-plastered before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece of stone. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Decided before fabrication, not after.