Splashbacks and upstands in Plashet

Yes. Plashet is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E6, E7. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The crate exists for the walk from the van. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Winders at the head of each flight are the tightest part of the climb and they are appreciably tighter than the straight run below them. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. Panels expose a wall; upstands forgive one. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab.

Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. 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. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. 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. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. 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.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. 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. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. 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 pier takes a joint against it, not across it. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. 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.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. They go in with the first load where the stop is short.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Ceilings in the principal rooms are three metres or more, so a full-height panel behind a hob is a taller piece here than the same kitchen would need anywhere else. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. What the wall can take decides how tall the stone goes.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. 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.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Height off the units, not off the old tiles.