Splashbacks and upstands in East Dulwich

Yes. East Dulwich is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE22. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. Visitor permits are issued to the household rather than to the trade, so the ones the day needs come from the customer and are best in hand the week before. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Panels come across in one pass with the route already cleared. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The rear door swings inward across the end of the run, so the last few hundred millimetres of worktop are only reachable with the door shut. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. 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. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. 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. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. 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. Panel widths answer to the slab before the wall. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. The wall has to be ready.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. 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 reveal decides where the stone dies.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand.

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. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Vein direction carries up from the top below.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. Sash windows in the addition sit low and the sill can land under standard worktop height, so the top is notched round it or the run stops short of it. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. Decided before fabrication starts.