Splashbacks and upstands in North Cheam

Yes. North Cheam is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM3. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. 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. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

The larder had a cold shelf and an air brick straight through to the outside, and that brick is usually still open behind whatever now stands in front of it. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. 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. Set it proud on a subframe and the gap becomes deliberate.

A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. 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 polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Where the van has to move, the panels come in first.

Often enough. It is one of the three, behind worktop replacement. The template, the workshop and the installers are the same either way. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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. 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. Cut as a set, so one can replace another.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. 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. Panel widths answer to the slab before the wall. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Nothing goes behind the hob until the wall is signed off.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Where the dividing wall has come out there is a steel over the opening and a nib of the old wall left at each end, and a run turning that corner has to clear both nibs. The ragged band left when old tiles and laminate come off together is what usually decides upstand over full height. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. 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 panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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 tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Vein direction carries up from the top below.