Splashbacks and upstands in Cranbrook

Yes. Cranbrook is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG1. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A large villa has wide doors, a generous hall and somewhere to park, so the joins that go in are chosen for layout rather than forced by the route. These runs are long and often include a range recess, so the splashback is nearly always more than one piece and the joint placement matters, put it in a corner or over a hob centre line, not randomly in the middle of a clear run. Panels expose a wall; upstands forgive one. 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. 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 carpeted hall runs a trolley badly, so a heavy piece is carried rather than rolled from the threshold in. 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. Break positions are chosen for the carry. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped.

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. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. The panel seam sits over the worktop seam. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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. The range and extractor must be sited and the window cill finished before the template, as both fix the vertical limits of the splashback. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. 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.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Nothing changes hands until after the template. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. Solid walls hold their heat and their damp, and anything sealed against them is worth looking at again a season later. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The extractor position is measured before the panel is drawn.

Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. 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 a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. External corners are mitred, not butted.