Splashbacks and upstands in Denmark Hill

Yes. Denmark Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE5. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Original joinery is deep and stands proud of the plaster, so the run is plotted to the units rather than to the wall behind them. 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. Solid plaster on brick takes a panel; a hollow wall wants thought. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel.

Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. 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. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run.

It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. 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. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. 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. The reveal decides where the stone dies. 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. Low maintenance is the honest choice for a let.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. The kitchen is a rear service room with a scullery and a larder off it, and both have usually survived as separate spaces. Behind a range cooker with gas burners, granite or sintered stone is the sensible pick; quartz has a resin binder and does not enjoy sustained radiant heat at close range, so keep it out of the immediate hob zone or specify a different material for that panel. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Windows are low and wide with deep timber cills and leaded lights, so a run under one meets joinery rather than plaster. Long runs mean more than one piece, and the joint belongs in a corner or on a hob centre line rather than mid-run. Where the plaster undulates, the shorter piece wins.

A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Whether it comes off the same slab as the run behind it or needs one of its own is settled by laying both against the usable area of the slab, not by adding the metres up. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. External corners are mitred, not butted.

Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. Retrofitted underfloor heating goes into the new part of the floor and stops at the old part, so the build-up changes partway across the room. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Behind the hob is where full height earns its cost.