Splashbacks and upstands in Collier Row

Yes. Collier Row 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. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Panels come across in one pass with the route already cleared. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The window sits in the middle of the run over the sink, and its board and cill set the limit on how tall an upstand can be. 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. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. 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. A door frame catches a tall panel long before a short one. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. 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. Small kitchens in a shared house are all short runs and tight cut-out spacing, which is more bench work per square metre than one large kitchen would be. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Ordered together, or the match is luck. Batching several kitchens together is the one situation where buying a whole slab is cheaper per kitchen rather than more expensive. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets final before template.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. 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. The hob panel is sized after the extractor, not before. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel. Boiler position, flue and any pipework drops must be settled and the wall skimmed level before templating the splashback run. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. The wall trade answers to a different budget.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. Joint positions follow from that.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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. The reveal decides where the stone dies.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. A mitred external return around it has to come from the same position in the slab, or the pattern visibly steps at the corner. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Doorways are 762mm at best, and the turn from the hall into the kitchen is the pinch point rather than the front door. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The flatter the wall, the taller the stone.