Splashbacks and upstands in Hornchurch

Yes. Hornchurch is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM11, RM12. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Ceilings run to about two point four metres, so wall units, a splashback and an extractor are all competing for the same short band of wall. 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. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return. 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. 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. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand.

The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. 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. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. 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. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. 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. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. One conversion drawing repeats its mistakes six times.

One leg of an L is nearly always the working run and the other little more than a landing space, but both are templated, cut and edged to the same standard. 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. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

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. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. One visit for upstands, two for full-height panels.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. A shallow bay or a squared-off rear window means the run beneath it is rarely the same depth at both ends. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Panel joints land over a unit line, never mid-span.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. 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. The panel is sized to the turn, not to the wall alone.

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. Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Scribe to the wall rather than stretch the panel.