Splashbacks and upstands in Mawneys

Yes. Mawneys is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM7. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. 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. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. Panels expose a wall; upstands forgive one. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. 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.

Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. 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. It travels on edge, so the clearance is checked on edge. 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. They go in with the first load where the stop is short.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and 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. 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. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Ordered together, or the match is luck. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets final before template.

A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. 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 galley shows both walls at the same time. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Same slab run, so it is settled at drawing stage.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Deep original skirting is often left in behind the units, standing them off the wall, so the back edge of the stone is plotted where the carcasses actually sit. A full-height panel in a chimney recess is templated as a trapezium, since that recess is square in neither direction. What the wall can take decides how tall the stone goes.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Return ends are polished, not left sawn.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. These were built late enough to have a damp course and proper footings, so the front of the house is close to true and the rear addition holding the kitchen is the part that has dropped. Sockets and switches are cut to measured positions with the faceplates off, not to the positions shown on a drawing. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one.