Splashbacks and upstands in Eastbrookend

Yes. Eastbrookend is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM10. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Services were designed in rather than added later, so waste and feeds come up where the drawing put them and the sink is not moving. Every socket, switch and any USB point has to be cut out of the stone to the actual measured position, so the template has to be taken with the faceplates off and the back boxes visible. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick. Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. 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.

Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. It decides panel size before anything is cut. 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. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback.

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. 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. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. 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 socket you intend to move must be moved and re-plastered before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece of stone. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. 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.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. 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. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. 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. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. 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. A window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument.

It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. An infill house is built to modern standards on an old plot, so the room is square even though the site around it is not. The plasterboard is flat enough for a full-height panel; it is the socket positions that cause the trouble. What the plaster is stuck to matters more than its colour.