Splashbacks and upstands in Fulham

Yes. Fulham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of the borough. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. 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. Height, returns and sockets, all settled on site. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail.

Every flight adds a set of handling movements, and handling is where stone gets damaged, so a fourth-floor walk-up is priced by the flight rather than by the metre. 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. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

A galley run down a side-return extension usually measures longer than a slab will give in one length, so a join is designed in from the start rather than discovered. 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. Long walls break where the worktop breaks. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. 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. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one. 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. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Committed early or dropped early, not left open.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. 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. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The obstruction sets the joint, not the wall.

Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Sintered stone at 12mm changes what a staircase can take, because the same run arrives at roughly half the weight of the granite equivalent. 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. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Side-return kitchens are long and narrow with one outside wall, and the wall the run sits against is often the oldest, least straight surface in the house. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Upstands follow the return round the corner.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Party wall settlement pulls the floor down at one side of the room, so a long run reads level at one end and not at the other. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Height is taken at the shortest point of the run.