Splashbacks and upstands in Harold Park

Yes. Harold Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM3. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. That is why they are crated the way they are. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The kitchen sits at the back with a door to the garden and a window over the sink, and both are on the wall the run wants. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. What the plaster is stuck to matters more than its colour. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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 sets the joint, not the wall.

The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. 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. Break positions are chosen for the carry. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on 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. 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. 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. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround.

A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. 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. Panels come off the same slab area as the run. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. 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. Height follows the sill, not the plan. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Deferred is workable; undecided is not.

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. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Scribed along the top edge as well.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. 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 floor is a solid slab with a screed over it, which is stable underfoot and rarely flat across a long run. Where a full-height panel is wanted, the wall is made good first or the panel rocks on the high spots. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. A tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to.

If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. 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. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. A mitred external return around it has to come from the same position in the slab, or the pattern visibly steps at the corner. The obstruction breaks the length, every time.