Splashbacks and upstands in Hampton

Yes. Hampton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW12. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The larder under the stairs is usually still there and still opens into the kitchen, so the run stops at a door that cannot be moved. 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. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. The obstruction breaks the length, every time.

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. 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. 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. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. That is why they are crated the way they are.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified.

Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. 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. Long walls break where the worktop breaks. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. 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. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two attendances need two people to be in.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Original quarry tile is often still down under two or three later floor coverings, which is why the finished floor height is rarely what anyone expects. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. A chimney breast breaks a panel run regardless of the drawing.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. 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. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. Break positions are chosen for the carry.

A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Upstands follow the return round the corner.

Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. 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. Panels travel on edge in a frame, and the frame needs the same clearance the finished piece does. A tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to.