Splashbacks and upstands in Hackney Downs

Yes. Hackney Downs is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E5, E8. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Kitchens in the upper flats often sit in the return wing at half-landing level, so there are three or four steps inside the flat before the room is reached at all. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. A bowed wall is what decides between an upstand and a panel. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. 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 obstruction breaks the length, every time.

Sintered stone at 12mm changes what a staircase can take, because the same run arrives at roughly half the weight of the granite equivalent. 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 vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. 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 really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Plot spec panels are ordered by the plot, not the room.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. 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. Window reveals take a piece of their own. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. 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. A tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Full height is decided before fabrication, not after.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. 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.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. A hundred and forty years of alterations sit under the current kitchen, and the worktop is what has to sit flat on top of all of it. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. A chimney breast breaks a panel run regardless of the drawing.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Scribe the top edge too or it stands off.

What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. The partitions put in at conversion are studwork standing on the old floor, so they take a fixing well but carry nothing, and a heavy end panel needs a different answer. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. Dry lining behind a panel needs a fixing plan of its own.