Splashbacks and upstands in Greenwich Peninsula

Yes. Greenwich Peninsula is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE10. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The crate exists for the walk from the van. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. Exposed brick is the defining issue: the face is uneven by 10mm or more across a bay, so a stone splashback either scribes to it, which means the back of the panel has to be relieved, or it is deliberately set proud on a subframe with a shadow reveal all round. A bowed wall is what decides between an upstand and a panel. Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. 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. Height follows the sill, not the plan.

The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. 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. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop replacement ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified. A specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how far the stone has to be relieved changes which part of the slab the piece is cut from. 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. Scribed along the top edge as well. Decide and build the backing method, scribe, subframe or board, before the template, because the templater is measuring to that face and not to the brick. 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. Same slab run, so it is settled at drawing stage.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A downstand over a run caps wall unit height before it caps anything else, and the splashback then takes its height from the steel rather than from the units. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The obstruction breaks the length, every time.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Nothing is payable in advance of the template. These read as easy from the outside and rarely are, since the flat entrance is often tighter than the goods lift. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Panel joints land over a unit line, never mid-span.

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. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Encased steel is always bigger than the steel inside it, so the casing is what gets plotted, and a casing is rarely square to the wall it sits against. A mitred external return around it has to come from the same position in the slab, or the pattern visibly steps at the corner. A tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one.