Splashbacks and upstands in Harringay

Yes. Harringay is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N4, N8. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Where the addition is single storey the ceiling follows a lean-to roof, so one side of the room loses height and a full-height panel has a sloping stop. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. The plaster behind it is the real question. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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. A tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives.

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. 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 tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. They go in with the first load where the stop is short.

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 and worktop replacement. 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. 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. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified. 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. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround.

Side-return kitchens are long and narrow with one outside wall, and the wall the run sits against is often the oldest, least straight surface in the house. 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.

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. 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. Scribe the top edge too or it stands off. 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. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. 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.

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. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. 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. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. Panels are carried on edge from the tail lift to the wall.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Chimney breasts are often taken out at ground level and left standing above, so the middle of the run is newer wall than the two ends of it. 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.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. An under-stairs cupboard eats one end of most of these kitchens, and the run stops at a door that has to keep opening. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Boxed pipework decides the panel width before taste does.

Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Original quarry tiles survive under a later vinyl in many of these, and lifting the units off them shows how far the floor has fallen towards the garden end. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. A bowed wall is what decides between an upstand and a panel.