Splashbacks and upstands in Preston

Yes. Preston is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA9, HA3. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. 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. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The rear wall now carries french or folding doors across most of its width, so a whole side of the room opens and a long piece comes straight in off the garden. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. 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.

Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. 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. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop fabrication. 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Panels for every unit, cut in one go. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. A spare panel is cheaper now than next year.

Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. 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. 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.

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. 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 old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Two trades, two budgets, one drawing.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. No money changes hands before the template. The chimney breast in the kitchen once took a copper or a back boiler, and whatever is left of it is rarely square to the rest of the room. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The batch is held while the tops are cut, or the colour drifts.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same 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 front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. 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. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. These were built with a coal store and an outside lavatory off the back, and where those got absorbed into the kitchen the walls around them are thinner and later. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. A return into a reveal is its own scribed piece.