Splashbacks and upstands in Chase Cross

Yes. Chase Cross is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM5. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. Post-war terraces are typically blockwork or early lightweight block with a hard render coat, and the kitchen has usually been reconfigured at least once, leaving patched areas of newer plaster next to original render that sit at different depths. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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.

Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. 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. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. One damaged panel, one twin already on the shelf.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. 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. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one. Boiler position, flue and any pipework drops must be settled and the wall skimmed level before templating the splashback run. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two attendances need two people to be in.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. One trip is always better than three.

Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Bollards, planters and a one-way service road can turn what looks like a ten-metre carry into a fifty-metre one. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Long walls break where the worktop breaks.