Splashbacks and upstands in Blackhorse Lane

Yes. Blackhorse Lane is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E17. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Waltham Forest. 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. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. That is why they are crated the way they are. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. Exposed brick is the defining issue: the face is uneven by 10mm or more across a bay, so a stone splashback either scribes to it, which means the back of the panel has to be relieved, or it is deliberately set proud on a subframe with a shadow reveal all round. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. The new blocks take a full-length single piece up a decent goods lift, which is worth designing for rather than defaulting to a jointed run.

The main road is a bus and cycle corridor with limited stopping, so deliveries route into the developments' service yards, which need booking with the building manager. Newer blocks have proper goods lifts, but the older industrial units are reached through shared yards with roller doors and no lift at all. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. 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. Joint positions follow from that.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop fabrication. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how far the stone has to be relieved changes which part of the slab the piece is cut from. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. Decide and build the backing method, scribe, subframe or board, before the template, because the templater is measuring to that face and not to the brick. Access in a tenanted flat depends on the tenant, so the template and fitting dates are agreed with whoever actually holds the keys. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Same slab run as the tops.