Splashbacks and upstands in Heston

Yes. Heston is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW5. It is run from the High Wycombe side, covering Buckinghamshire & Berkshire. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. 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.

A detached house of this age has a drive, a side path and a back door, so access is rarely the constraint and the design can follow the room. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. The second prep kitchen is a genuine spec here, so price two templates and expect two different materials rather than one continuous order.

Wide roads, driveways almost universal, and the A4 with M4 Junction 3 on the doorstep. The only obstacle is that the drives are usually full of cars. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. Joint positions follow from that. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop design & quotation, worktop installation and worktop fabrication. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Households sharing a house tend to want two prep areas rather than one, which usually means an island as well as a perimeter run. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. 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. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. Splashbacks are cut from the same slab run as the tops, so they have to be decided before fabrication, not after. Same slab run as the tops.