Splashbacks and upstands in Ruislip Gardens

Yes. Ruislip Gardens is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA4. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hillingdon. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. 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. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. 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. The obstruction sets the joint, not the wall.

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. 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. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Where the van has to move, the panels come in first.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, 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 work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Reordered next year, it will not match. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Full height behind the hob is less for a tenant to scrub.

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. 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. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

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. Height follows the sill, not the plan. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Whoever specifies it signs the drawing.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. A panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands.

Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. 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. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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. Scribed along the top edge as well.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The boiler has usually been moved into the kitchen at some point, with its flue through the outer leaf and its pipework surface run to the nearest corner. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. A return into a reveal is its own scribed piece.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The obstruction breaks the length, every time.