Splashbacks and upstands in Rosehill

Yes. Rosehill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SM1. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Sutton. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Nothing this long gets walked while a warden is circling. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Rear access through a garden or a shared path means long pieces can usually come in whole from the back. The rear kitchen wall in ex-council flats and maisonettes is commonly dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which means mechanical fixings are hard work and the splashback is held on adhesive rather than screwed. The tile bed comes off before anything is measured. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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. The obstruction sets the joint, not the wall.

The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. 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 ceiling over a staircase limits a standing panel as much as the walls. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. The crate stays on the van until the route in is clear.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Grout lines are the first thing to fail in a let. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing.

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. Behind an island there is no wall to hide against. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. 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. Height follows the sill, not the plan. Any surface trunking or conduit has to be rerouted or accepted and boxed before templating, because the stone cannot be scribed around a live conduit on site. 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. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Priced on its own line so it can be deferred.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock.

Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. These kitchens give three metres of usable wall and no more, so a dimension out by a few millimetres costs a whole run rather than a piece. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Full height needs a flat wall and a finished electrician.

Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. Upstands are the cheapest way to finish several kitchens consistently, and they come out of the offcuts the tops leave behind. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. 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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site.