Splashbacks and upstands in Crayford

Yes. Crayford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA1. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The goods lift is generous and the flat entrance often is not, so the tightest point on the route is inside the flat rather than in the building. Exposed brick is the defining issue: the face is uneven by 10mm or more across a bay, so a stone splashback either scribes to it, which means the back of the panel has to be relieved, or it is deliberately set proud on a subframe with a shadow reveal all round. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. 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 sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. 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. They come in last so nothing is carried past them. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. One trip is always better than three.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop fabrication. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Grout lines are the first thing to fail in a let. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. 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 joint behind a tap is a joint on show. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. 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. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units. Decide and build the backing method, scribe, subframe or board, before the template, because the templater is measuring to that face and not to the brick. Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. 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.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Panels come off the same slab area as the run.

Nothing is payable in advance of the template. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Services coming up through a floor slab mean the island cannot move to suit the stone, so the stone is cut to suit the island. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Full height needs a flat wall and a finished electrician.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. 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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Window reveals take a piece of their own.