Splashbacks and upstands in Coldharbour

Yes. Coldharbour is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE9. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Ceilings sit at about two point three metres and the head of the window is close under them, so a unit over the window has very little wall to hold onto. That suits a full-height piece, because a large flat panel bonded across its back is more stable on concrete than a run of small tiles ever was. The age of the plaster decides the fixing, not the finish. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel.

A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. 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. Break positions are chosen for the carry. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop fabrication. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Cut now, stored for the next void. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, or the join will say so.

A window at one end and a doorway at the other means one end of the run is lit from behind and the other is interrupted, so the two ends of the same length behave differently. 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. Long walls break where the worktop breaks. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

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. 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. The reveal decides where the stone dies. 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. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Upstand height taken from the specification.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The carry is the constraint: a single stair with tight half-landings, or deck access with a long walk from the lift. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Panel thickness changes what the sockets need behind them.

Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. 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. 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. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. One trip is always better than three.

A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. 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. The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Upstands follow the return round the corner.