Splashbacks and upstands in Creekmouth

Yes. Creekmouth is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG11. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. 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. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Ceilings are high and there are usually no wall units, so a splashback runs to whatever height is decided rather than to a cupboard. 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. Decided before fabrication starts. Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. 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. Set it proud on a subframe and the gap becomes deliberate.

Booked delivery windows on a managed estate run to an hour, and a worktop install does not happen inside an hour. 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. They come in last so nothing is carried past them. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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 really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop fabrication and worktop replacement. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. 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. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Long walls break where the worktop breaks. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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. A landlord with several similar flats usually wants one specification repeated, so the material, the edge detail and the upstand height are recorded and reused rather than rechosen each time. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Low maintenance is the honest choice for a let.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how far the stone has to be relieved changes which part of the slab the piece is cut from. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Upstands follow the return round the corner.

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. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. A height barrier on the car park entrance rules out a tail-lift van outright, and the stone then transfers to a trolley at the barrier itself. 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. Suction lifters take a panel where hands cannot get a grip.

The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. The panel behind a hob is usually the tallest piece in the kitchen, and its height is set by the extractor above it rather than by the wall cupboards either side. The hob panel is sized after the extractor, not before.