Splashbacks and upstands in Northwick Park

Yes. Northwick Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA1, HA3. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Harrow. 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. 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 work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Inter-war purpose-built blocks have curved external walls and steel windows, so a run along an outside wall is following a genuine curve rather than a bow. Mansion block kitchens are full of boxed-in soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing is usually plywood or plasterboard that stops short of the ceiling, so the splashback run gets broken up by returns rather than running clean wall to wall. Old plaster rarely gives you a flat metre. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. 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. The obstruction sets the joint, not the wall.

Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one. 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. 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.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Full height behind the hob is less for a tenant to scrub. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Grout lines are the first thing to fail in a let.

Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. 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 stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

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. Height follows the sill, not the plan. The riser boxing must be finished in its final form and any access panel positions agreed before the template, since the stone is set out around them. Inventories record the condition of a kitchen at both ends of a tenancy, which is a practical argument for a surface that looks the same in its fifth year as its first. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Priced on its own line so it can be deferred.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. 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. Scribed along the top edge as well.

The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. A narrow gap between parked cars decides how a panel turns.

Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. 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. They come in last so nothing is carried past them.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. 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. The obstruction breaks the length, every time.