Splashbacks and upstands in Hanger Hill

Yes. Hanger Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W5. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Arts and Crafts houses have deep eaves, low windows and inglenook recesses, so the kitchen has more corners and reveals than its floor area suggests. These runs are long and often include a range recess, so the splashback is nearly always more than one piece and the joint placement matters, put it in a corner or over a hob centre line, not randomly in the middle of a clear run. Panels expose a wall; upstands forgive one. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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 pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

A short run of external steps before the communal door means a piece is lifted twice before the staircase proper has even started. 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 van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and 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. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. 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. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. 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 window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument. The range and extractor must be sited and the window cill finished before the template, as both fix the vertical limits of the splashback. Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Heights that have to match are cut to match.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort.

The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Full height wants a flat wall behind it.

Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The measurement that decides everything is the diagonal between the underside of the flight above and the outer edge of the turn below it. 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. Full height goes in only where the way in allows full height.