Splashbacks and upstands in Greenford

Yes. Greenford 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. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The original room is timber over a ventilated void and the newer half is a slab, so the floor gives underfoot on one side of the junction and not on the other. 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. What the plaster is stuck to matters more than its colour. 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. 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.

The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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 panel is sized to the turn, not to the wall alone. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. One trip is always better than three.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. 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. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. 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.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Plaster in the older half is a sand and cement backing on brick while the newer half is board on dabs, so the same fixing bites in one wall and breaks through the other. The ragged band left when old tiles and laminate come off together is what usually decides upstand over full height. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The scullery and the kitchen were knocked into one at some point, and the stub of the old dividing wall is still there under the plaster. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Window reveals decide where the run of stone stops.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Panels come off the same slab area as the run.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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. It travels on edge, so the clearance is checked on edge.