Splashbacks and upstands in Old Malden

Yes. Old Malden is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT4. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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.

These were built with a separate dining room, and most have had the wall between it and the kitchen taken out with a steel put in above. 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. Solid plaster on brick takes a panel; a hollow wall wants thought. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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. Full height wants a flat wall behind it.

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. A tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. 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 really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The offcuts finish the room. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. 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. Vein direction carries up from the top below. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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. Each obstruction is another joint, and it is priced as one. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. A deferred splashback still comes off this drawing.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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.

Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. 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. The panel takes its height off the steel.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. No money changes hands before the template. The old larder leaves behind a thick cold shelf and a vent brick through the outer wall, and both have to go before that wall reads flat. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Twenty millimetres of packing behind a panel is not a fix.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Behind an island there is no wall to hide against.