Splashbacks and upstands in East Wickham

Yes. East Wickham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The window cill clears a worktop by very little, which settles how tall the upstand under it can be before anyone has drawn a thing. 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. Height, returns and sockets, all settled on site. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab.

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. 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. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop fabrication. 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. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. 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. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Ordered together, or the match is luck.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. 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. Upstands follow the return round the corner. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

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. 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 pier takes a joint against it, not across it. 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. Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. 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.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. Upstands are the cheapest way to finish several kitchens consistently, and they come out of the offcuts the tops leave behind. Sockets final before template.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. 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. 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. The hob panel is sized after the extractor, not before.

Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. 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. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show.

A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. 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.