Splashbacks and upstands in Coney Hall

Yes. Coney Hall is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR4. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Windows and doors were replaced across whole streets on one programme, so the kitchen window is a plastic frame in the old opening with a deep lined reveal. 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. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. 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 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 reveal decides where the stone dies.

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. 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 door frame catches a tall panel long before a short one. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. 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.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. 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. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Same batch, or the join will say so.

Butt-jointing over the gable puts the seam a few hundred millimetres back from the corner, below the eye line instead of straight across it. 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. A galley shows both walls at the same time. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over 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. 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. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Whoever specifies it signs the drawing.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Carcasses stay. Surface changes. That is the whole of it. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. Joint positions follow from that.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Floors are a sand and cement screed over concrete, laid fast and worn since, so they are hard, solid and seldom flat. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Panel thickness changes what the sockets need behind them.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Corner sinks and corner hobs sit exactly where the joint wants to be, so on an L the cut-out positions get settled before the join positions do. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Return ends are polished, not left sawn.