Splashbacks and upstands in London Bridge

Yes. London Bridge is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE1. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Southwark. 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. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Rushing the last piece off the van is how panels break. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Windows are large industrial openings with deep sills, and a run finishing at one meets a reveal a full brick deep. Exposed brick is the defining issue: the face is uneven by 10mm or more across a bay, so a stone splashback either scribes to it, which means the back of the panel has to be relieved, or it is deliberately set proud on a subframe with a shadow reveal all round. The wall gets made good first or the gap shows. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. 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. A breast return is scribed on three edges.

A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. 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. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Two hands and a clear route, or it waits on the van.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Ordered together, or the match is luck. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets final before template.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. The seam sits in shadow or it sits in a corner. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. 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. Set it proud on a subframe and the gap becomes deliberate. Decide and build the backing method, scribe, subframe or board, before the template, because the templater is measuring to that face and not to the brick. Quartz is the sensible default in a rental: nothing to seal, nothing to maintain, and nothing an incoming tenant needs briefing on. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Deferred is workable; undecided is not.

The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. An upstand rides what a panel exposes.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Services run on the surface in these buildings, so conduit and pipework cross the wall behind the units and stand proud of it. Setting proud is usually the better call: it reads as a deliberate detail rather than a bad fit, and it avoids trying to scribe stone to a surface that has no consistent plane. Solid plaster on brick takes a panel; a hollow wall wants thought.

Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. There is nothing to pay before the template visit. The original openings were sized for goods, but the residential doors dropped into them were not. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The tile line that was there proves nothing about level.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Many of these kitchens are a fitted pod dropped into open floor, so three sides are free and only the fourth is ever scribed. Setting the panel proud on a subframe with a shadow gap reads as a detail; scribing to raw brick rarely does. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it.