Splashbacks and upstands in Broad Green

Yes. Broad Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. 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 wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. 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 sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

Open-tread and cantilevered stairs give nothing to lean a piece against, so the whole weight stays on the crew for the full length of the flight. 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. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. 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.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. Shared-house kitchens take heavier use from more people than a family kitchen does, and the surface gets chosen on that basis rather than on looks. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Plot spec panels are ordered by the plot, not the room. Where a single building holds several small kitchens, the work arrives as one job rather than four, and it should be cut off the same slab run so the batches genuinely match. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. One conversion drawing repeats its mistakes six times.

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. Panel height is set by the extractor. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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 downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units. 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. 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. Nothing goes behind the hob until the wall is signed off.

The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. A hundred and forty years of alterations sit under the current kitchen, and the worktop is what has to sit flat on top of all of it. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Twenty millimetres of packing behind a panel is not a fix.

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. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. 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. Every internal corner is two pieces, not one.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. A full-height panel in a chimney recess is templated as a trapezium, since that recess is square in neither direction. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.