Splashbacks and upstands in Harrow Weald

Yes. Harrow Weald is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA3. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Harrow. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

A side door into a lobby with a cloakroom off it is the standard arrangement, so there is a second way in that misses the hall altogether. 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. Height, returns and sockets, all settled on site. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. 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.

A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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 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. 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. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified. 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. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround.

Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. 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. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. 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 bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. 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 moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. They come in last so nothing is carried past them.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. 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. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. 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 pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. The boiler has usually been moved into the kitchen at some point, with its flue through the outer leaf and its pipework surface run to the nearest corner. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The extractor position is measured before the panel is drawn.