Splashbacks and upstands in East Acton

Yes. East Acton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W3. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. 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. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. One trip is always better than three. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The gas enters at the back of the house and the pipe to the hob crosses the room at low level in a boxing along the skirting. The rear kitchen wall in ex-council flats and maisonettes is commonly dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which means mechanical fixings are hard work and the splashback is held on adhesive rather than screwed. Decided before fabrication starts. 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. 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. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand.

Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off 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. Suction lifters take a panel where hands cannot get a grip. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. That is why they are crated the way they are.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop replacement comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, or the join will say so. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Ordered together, or the match is luck.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. 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. Return ends are polished, not left sawn. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab. Any surface trunking or conduit has to be rerouted or accepted and boxed before templating, because the stone cannot be scribed around a live conduit on site. A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. A second visit needs a second permission.

What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. 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. The pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. 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. Nothing is leaned anywhere it could slide down.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Panel widths answer to the slab before the wall.