Splashbacks and upstands in Gants Hill

Yes. Gants Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG2. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. 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 bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand.

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. 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 break goes where a joint reads as deliberate. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. One trip is always better than three.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. 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. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. 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. Every internal corner is two pieces, not one. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. The tops and the wall are rarely one approval.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. 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. The pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Long walls break where the worktop breaks.

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. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Ceilings are lath and plaster at the front and plasterboard in the extension, and the join between the two marks where the original back wall stood. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. An upstand asks less of old plaster than a panel does.

Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Solid brick with a render coat is firm to work against and out of plumb, so the scribe at worktop height is different from the one at plinth level. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. Decided before fabrication starts.