Splashbacks and upstands in Golders Green

Yes. Golders Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW11. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Permitted works hours are commonly weekdays with a late start and an early finish, so a one-day fit is planned around the porter and the lift. Mansion block kitchens are full of boxed-in soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing is usually plywood or plasterboard that stops short of the ceiling, so the splashback run gets broken up by returns rather than running clean wall to wall. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it. 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. 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. Each obstruction is another joint, and it is priced as one.

The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. 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. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop fabrication. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Cut with the tops while the batch is open. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Cut as a set, so one can replace another.

A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. 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. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. 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 panel takes its height off the steel. The riser boxing must be finished in its final form and any access panel positions agreed before the template, since the stone is set out around them. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. 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.

The carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Visitor permits are issued to the household rather than to the trade, so the ones the day needs come from the customer and are best in hand the week before. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. The kitchen was a service room at the back of the flat, so it is a long way from the front door along a corridor with two turns in it. Each return needs its own piece with a mitred or butted external corner, and those pieces should come off the same slab so the movement lines up across the corner. Where the plaster undulates, the shorter piece wins.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Panels come off the same slab area as the run.

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. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one.