Splashbacks and upstands in Elmers End

Yes. Elmers End is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR3. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The first kitchen was fitted by the authority to a standard layout, so the waste, the gas point and the sockets are all still where that layout put them. That suits a full-height piece, because a large flat panel bonded across its back is more stable on concrete than a run of small tiles ever was. The tile bed comes off before anything is measured. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over 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. The pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. 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. What can be got into the room decides the height above the worktop. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Ordered together, or the match is luck. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets final before template.

The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. 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. The hob panel is sized after the extractor, not before. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. 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. A window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Upstand height taken from the specification.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. 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. Full height wants a flat wall behind it.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. A number of these blocks have had the gas taken out altogether, which turns a change of hob into an electrical question rather than a plumbing one. Dense concrete takes adhesive better than fixings, which actually suits a large bonded panel. Panels expose a wall; upstands forgive one.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. The ceiling is an in-situ concrete soffit under a skim, so an extractor goes out through the wall rather than up through anything. The rough band left where tiles took the plaster with them is covered by the upstand rather than made good twice. What the wall can take decides how tall the stone goes.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show.