Splashbacks and upstands in Pitshanger

Yes. Pitshanger is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W5. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The longer the walk, the fewer the panels per trip. 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. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail.

The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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. Two people to a panel, however light it looks on the van. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A narrow gap between parked cars decides how a panel turns.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop fabrication. 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. 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. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Panels for every unit, cut in one go.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Return ends are polished, not left sawn. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

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. 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. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two trades, two budgets, one drawing.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. The ceiling over a staircase limits a standing panel as much as the walls.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. The scullery and the kitchen were knocked into one at some point, and the stub of the old dividing wall is still there under the plaster. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. The batch is held while the tops are cut, or the colour drifts.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room.

A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. An island carries its own edge detail all the way round, so a mitred 100mm apron on four sides is four mitres cut, bonded and polished before the piece ever leaves the bench. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Panel widths answer to the slab before the wall.