Splashbacks and upstands in New Eltham

Yes. New Eltham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE9. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The floor is a solid slab with a screed over it, which is stable underfoot and rarely flat across a long run. 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. Height, returns and sockets, all settled on site. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. 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 window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument.

A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. 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. Full height goes in only where the way in allows full height. 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. 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.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. 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. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Cut with the tops while the batch is open. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut as a set, so one can replace another.

The advantage of a U is that every join can be put over a gable in a corner, so nothing lands in the middle of a clear length. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. 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. Full height wants a flat wall behind it. 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. What repeats across flats is recorded once and repeated.

Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. A shared drive is only useful if the neighbour is not the one parked behind the van, so we ask which side the standing belongs to before the date is set. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. The longer the walk, the fewer the panels per trip.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. These were built with generous circulation, so an island or a peninsula fits in a room that would be too tight in a house of the same floor area. The ragged band left when old tiles and laminate come off together is what usually decides upstand over full height. A hundred millimetres covers more than it looks.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The roof space above carries services, so a boiler flue or a soil vent can drop into a corner of the kitchen and stay exactly there. Behind a hob the panel runs to the underside of the extractor, and that height is settled on site rather than on the plan. The plaster behind it is the real question.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Solid brick with a sand and cement render is firm to work against and reliably out of plumb across the length of a run. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Old walls take a scribed upstand better than a rigid panel.