Splashbacks and upstands in Crystal Palace

Yes. Crystal Palace is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE19, SE20. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Long panels and long carries do not mix. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

A range sitting in a chimney recess is common, and the flanking pieces are cut with the manufacturer clearance built into the template. 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. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. 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.

Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. 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 tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Off the van last, and never in a hurry.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. 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 panel seam sits over the worktop seam. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. 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 bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand. The range and extractor must be sited and the window cill finished before the template, as both fix the vertical limits of the splashback. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Big rooms hide their falls, and the difference from one corner of a five metre floor to the other is measured in tens of millimetres. 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.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. The crate exists for the walk from the van.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. A corbel on show under an overhang is a decision about how the piece looks from a stool, so it gets settled alongside the edge profile rather than left to whoever fits it. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. External corners are mitred, not butted.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Wide doors, generous rooms and somewhere to park mean the joins that go in are the ones we choose, not the ones the building forces. Socket positions, sill heights and wall flatness are the three things that settle this, and all three are properties of the building. Behind the hob is where full height earns its cost.