Splashbacks and upstands in Greenford Green

Yes. Greenford Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are UB6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The chimney breast served a back boiler and is usually still standing, so there is a shallow recess on one side of the room. The ragged band left when old tiles and laminate come off together is what usually decides upstand over full height. Panels expose a wall; upstands forgive one. 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. 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.

Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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. It travels on edge, so the clearance is checked on edge. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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.

Often enough. It is one of the three, behind worktop replacement. The template, the workshop and the installers are the same either way. 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. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did. 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. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

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. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. 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 old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Same slab run, so it is settled at drawing stage.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. Where a full-height panel is wanted, the wall is made good first or the panel rocks on the high spots. What the wall can take decides how tall the stone goes.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. Behind a hob the panel runs to the underside of the extractor, and that height is settled on site rather than on the plan. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. 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. 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.