Splashbacks and upstands in Hook

Yes. Hook is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT9. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. 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. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls are dense block or in-situ concrete with a bonded plaster, so the bottom course of tiles brings plaster with it when the old top comes off. 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. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Ex-council houses here often have out-of-level solid floors, so the base units need shimming across the run before a stone top will sit without rocking.

Quiet estate roads off the Hook Rise corridor with driveways and garages, and enough width to turn a van; the main hold-up is the A3 junction traffic rather than anything on site. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. 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 installation, worktop replacement and worktop design & quotation. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Same batch, same run, same day. 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. Same batch, same run, same day.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Corners get their own pieces. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Decided before fabrication, not after.