Splashbacks and upstands in Hayes End

Yes. Hayes End is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are UB4. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hillingdon. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. Your part of it happens entirely at home, with nothing to travel to and nothing to bring back.

Plaster in the older half is a sand and cement backing on brick while the newer half is board on dabs, so the same fixing bites in one wall and breaks through the other. 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. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops. 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. 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.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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 particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Plot spec panels are ordered by the plot, not the room.

It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. 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. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. 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. 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. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Deferred is workable; undecided is not.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. 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. Scribed along the top edge as well.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Off the van last, and never in a hurry.

The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The obstruction breaks the length, every time.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. 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.