Splashbacks and upstands in Harrow Road

Yes. Harrow Road is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W9, W10. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Deck access means a long open walkway from the lift or the stair to the front door, and that walk happens with the piece on edge in whatever weather there is. That suits a full-height piece, because a large flat panel bonded across its back is more stable on concrete than a run of small tiles ever was. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel.

Car depth is the number that settles it wherever a piece cannot be stood upright, and most residential cars are shallower than the run they are serving. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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 particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is a point about the buildings round here, not about the job. The quoting, the cutting and the fitting are identical here to anywhere else we work. Rooms in a shared house are let individually, so the work has to be done around whoever is still living in the building. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The offcuts finish the room. A landlord ordering several kitchens at once is buying a specification once and then repeating it, so the early decisions are worth taking slowly. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it.

Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. 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. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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 reveal decides where the stone dies. Any surface trunking or conduit has to be rerouted or accepted and boxed before templating, because the stone cannot be scribed around a live conduit on site. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. 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.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Window reveals take a piece of their own.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. The rough band left where tiles took the plaster with them is covered by the upstand rather than made good twice. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. The carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Rushing the last piece off the van is how panels break.

They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. A fob on the communal door and a shared lift mean the carry is timed rather than continuous. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. The wall decides, not the brochure.