Splashbacks and upstands in Canning Town

Yes. Canning Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E16. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. 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. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. One trip is always better than three. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Flats are handed in pairs about the stair core, so half the kitchens in the block are the mirror image of the other half. The rear kitchen wall in ex-council flats and maisonettes is commonly dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which means mechanical fixings are hard work and the splashback is held on adhesive rather than screwed. A bowed wall is what decides between an upstand and a panel. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. 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. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units.

The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. 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. Full height goes in only where the way in allows full height. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. That is why they are crated the way they are.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Reordered next year, it will not match. 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. Full height behind the hob is less for a tenant to scrub.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. 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. Every internal corner is two pieces, not one. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

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. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces. Any surface trunking or conduit has to be rerouted or accepted and boxed before templating, because the stone cannot be scribed around a live conduit on site. Residents are given written notice before anyone attends, and that notice period rather than the workshop is what governs the earliest sensible start. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Agreed with whoever is paying for both.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. A fob on the communal door and a shared lift mean the carry is timed rather than continuous. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The batch is held while the tops are cut, or the colour drifts.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. 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. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. 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. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The reveal decides where the stone dies.