Splashbacks and upstands in Maze Hill

Yes. Maze Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE10, SE3. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Two hands and a clear route, or it waits on the van. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The flat entrance door is a certified fire door on a closer, and taking it off for an hour means dealing with the seals and the closer before the day ends. 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. Solid plaster on brick takes a panel; a hollow wall wants thought. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

Sintered stone at 12mm changes what a staircase can take, because the same run arrives at roughly half the weight of the granite equivalent. 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. The ceiling over a staircase limits a standing panel as much as the walls. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. The longer the walk, the fewer the panels per trip.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. 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. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut with the tops while the batch is open.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A galley shows both walls at the same time. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel. 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. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Same slab run, so it is settled at drawing stage.

A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. 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.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. A narrow gap between parked cars decides how a panel turns.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. A cast iron soil stack runs down the outside of the rear wall, so moving the sink means a fresh penetration through solid brick. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The wall decides, not the brochure.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. 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. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock.