Splashbacks and upstands in Portsoken

Yes. Portsoken is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1, EC3N. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. Streets near a ground or a venue have restrictions that come and go with the fixture list rather than with the time of day. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. One trip is always better than three. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Construction is blockwork with a render or a brick skin, so the walls are reasonably true and take a fixing properly. That step is exactly what an upstand covers and what a full-height panel exposes, so unless the wall is skimmed level end to end, a 100mm band is the reliable choice. Decided before fabrication starts. Small kitchens, long carries, and a lift you cannot rely on - the labour cost here is all in getting the stone from the kerb to the flat.

Estate blocks with controlled entry, communal stairs and a single lift per core, and the surrounding streets have market trading and heavy pedestrian flow around Middlesex Street on trading days. There is no meaningful visitor parking, so the van works a short loading window and the crew does a long push across a courtyard to the block door. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets final before template. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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. Boiler position, flue and any pipework drops must be settled and the wall skimmed level before templating the splashback run. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Same slab run as the tops.