Splashbacks and upstands in Forestdale

Yes. Forestdale is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR0. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The hot water cylinder sits in a cupboard opening off the kitchen or the landing above it, and the pipework to it drops through the corner of the room. 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. A hundred millimetres covers more than it looks. 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. A window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument.

Where the turn inside is tight the piece gets turned on the path and brought in already on edge, which needs room in front of the door as well as behind it. 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. Panels are carried on edge from the tail lift to the wall. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut with the tops while the batch is open.

A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. 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 alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

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. Full height wants a flat wall behind 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. Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Full height is decided before fabrication, not after.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. These kitchens give three metres of usable wall and no more, so a dimension out by a few millimetres costs a whole run rather than a piece. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Boxed pipework decides the panel width before taste does.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. 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. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. 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.

A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Dense concrete and blockwork mean the wall cannot be chased back or packed out, so the stone carries the scribe. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Making the wall good first is cheaper than working around it.